By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The federal government has approved the sum of N2.4 billion for the construction of National Sports Medicine and High Performance Centre at Package B of the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja just as the completion date has been put for three years.
The Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Chief Sunday Dare made this public while briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice Presidential, Professor Yemi Osinbajo at Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday.
According to Dare, FEC okayed the construction of the National Sports Medicine and High Performance Centre in Abuja to improve the overall performances of Nigerian athletes because lack of such facilities have been one of the drawbacks of sports development and athletes development at moment.
Said he: “Over time and in the last past decades, one of the drawbacks of sports development and athletes development has been the lack of a High Performance Centre. Global sports development practice has High Performance Centre as a major component of conditioning its athletes.
“It takes your athletes beyond just raw talent to some level of sports science and precision and the lack of that scientific input into our sports development over time has not helped us to reach the maximum podium performance that can be attained by our athletes. We have seen, particularly in Kenya, where we have something close to that and in South Africa, we have something close to that, what their performances are.
“As we speak, more than 80% of the equipment that will be needed, some of them, digital equipment, are already secured and obtained at Moshood Abiola Stadium. What we need is to construct the specialised building where we’re going to instal all of this.
“And if this is done, the number one High Performance Centre in the whole of the African continent is the one in South Africa and if we’re able to complete the one in Abuja here, that will be the second one in Africa.
“The company that got the award for the contract is messers Jamec West Africa Limited for N2.4 billion naira with a completion period of three years”.
Meanwhile, the Minister said his ministry has been able to fix the mainbowl of the Moshood Abiola Stadium Abuja to the satisfaction of Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), insisting that a team from the continental football governing body has given two stadia in Nigeria all clear to host CAF competitions.
“To put the records right, CAF has approved two stadia in Nigeria, the Moshood Abiola Stadium Abuja and Godswill Akpabio International Stadium in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state to host CAF events. We have also fixed the National Stadium Surulere, Lagos and people are using the facilities except the 50-year mainbowl”, Dare explained.
