The Minister for Sports and Youth Development Sunday Dare has named Brigadier General Emmanuel Okaro as chairperson of an independent Committee to review the medals table at the recently concluded 21st National Sports Festival in Asaba, Delta State.
This follows complaints made by some states about the medals table.
The Ministry of Sports and Youth Development in a statement released during the weekend informed that, after an initial review was done, the Ministry has decided to take a further step of setting up an independent Committee to immediately do a further review.
The process, the Ministry said was normal in situations such as this, to ascertain whatever the challenges were with the Festival Medal table computation. It is also normal to have them resolved even after the Festival.
Towards the resolution of the matter, the Ministry hereby announces a Committee made up of experts who had managed the Technical arm of previous Festivals in the past.
It, therefore, listed a 4-man committee made up of Mrs Hauwa-Kulu, Madaki Elias Gora, Brig. Gen. Emmanuel Okaro (Chairman) and Lekan Alabi, the Statistician of the Ministry as Secretary, while a representative of the Delta State Sports Commission will serve as Member.
The Committee is expected among other things to determine what went wrong with the Medal table computation from the standpoint of knowledge and experience of previous festivals
Establish the exact and correct Medal table by ridding the table of any double entries and inaccuracies and make recommendations to guide against future occurrences.
The Committee has seven days to complete its assignment.
Recall that host Delta State won Nigeria’s biggest multi-sports fiesta with 320 gold, 200 silver and 128 bronze medals to edge 35 other states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
