Niger Delta Sports Festival Initiator, Ikpokpo thumbs up Gateway Games

The initiator of the recently concluded Niger Delta Sports Festival, Itiako Malik Ikpokpo, has expressed satisfaction with the general organisation of the ongoing National Sports Festival tagged ‘Gateway Games 2024’, saying that the planning, organisation and general execution of the games is commendable.

According to him, the two personalities involved in managing the Commission, Alhaji Shehu Dikko and the Director General, Honourable Bukola Olopade brought a lot of experience to bear on the Festival which was declared open on Sunday, May, 16, 2025 by the Vice President , Senator Kashim Shettima

“I’m really happy with what is happening here. The two technocrats in charge of the NSC really brought their wealth of experience to bear on the festival. You can see a lot of razzmatazz, excitement, joy and happiness on the faces of thousands of people gathered here to be part of the festival.

” You’ll equally agree with me that the idea is for every festival to be an improvement of previous editions and if there’s no improvement, no legacy will be left for people to work with and that’s why I must commend them for doing a good job.

” I can tell you that the outcome is great and it’s a very good programme because a festival like this needs proper planning and I think they’ve done well”, noted the two term Chairman of Isoko South Local Government Area.

Ikpokpo further expressed his happiness that the maiden Niger Delta Sports Festival prepared a lot of their athletes for the festival just as he noted that the festival enabled ‘Invited Junior Athletes’ to compete amongst the more experienced ones and prepare them adequately for the future.

He charged various state governments in the country to invest more in sports and stop treating the sector as a social service but to see it as serious business because it serves as a value chain.

” I want to use this opportunity to appeal to various state governments to take sports as a serious business and pay attention to it as they do to other Ministries. There should be a general phenomenon around the country that sports development be taken serious
“I know that some states like Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Lagos and Ogun take sports serious and I want to see others emulate them.

The former Director General of Association of Local Government Chairmen ( ALGON), urged the officials to be fair and the athletes to compete well and ensure they make their states and country proud.

On the removal of athletes with doping cases from the festival, he said he doesn’t have any problem with any state trying to field those athletes but the most important thing is that the NSC investigated and banned them again.

” The National Sports Commission is mandated to do what is right, they’ve done exactly that and banned them again and if we have that type of culture, nobody will try that again”, he stressed.