Chief Segun Odegbami, a sports administrator and member of the squad that won the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), praised Ogun State for its facilities for the 22nd National Sports Festival and recommended that these world-class facilities be maintained after the Games instead of being neglected.
While talking to journalists at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena in Abeokuta on Sunday, the ICC Shooting Stars legend urged the government to adopt a maintenance culture to safeguard all facilities
Odegbami elaborated that the sports festival contributed positively to the development of sporting facilities and the discovery of young talents. He pointed out that the state had hosted the event 19 years prior, and with proper maintenance of the facilities, renovations or new constructions would not have been necessary.
The festival is a good thing. It’s not every state that has the capacity to host the festival.
“Ogun hosted in 2006. We put in place fantastic facilities and when you look back now, 19 years after and you see what is on ground.
“Why do you need to spend this amount of money doing these renovations to effect changes if we had maintained what we had in 2006? We have challenges with our maintenance culture,” he said.
Odegbami, recently appointed by Gov. Dapo Abiodun as Ogun state Sports Ambassador, said that the festival would live up to expectations.
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