NUGA 2022 : UNILAG to Host 10,000 Athletes, Officials

Funmi Ogundare

About 10,000 student athletes and officials are expected at the 26th edition of the 2022 Nigerian Universities Games Association ( NUGA) to be hosted by the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka.

The games tagged ‘A City NUGA’, which is holding between 16th and 26th March, 2022, is coming 23 years years after the institution hosted the last one in 1998.

UNILAG Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who briefed journalists yesterday in Lagos, said about 136 universities are expected to participate in the 26th edition of the games, adding that they will be competing in 17 different games including; football (male and female) volleyball, basketball, handball, tennis, table tennis, badminton, hockey, cricket, among others.

He described sports as a centripetal force, which unite the nation, despite socio-cultural and religious barriers.

“The desire to leverage this all-important opportunity that sports presents is what propelled the University of Lagos, under my leadership, to bid for the hosting right of NUGA Games in 2018.

“The university won the hosting right after defeating the University of Jos in a keenly contested bid with 76 points to 66 points,” he said.

With the announcement of this win, Ogundipe said the institution set arrangements in motion by paying the obligatory fees of N6,000,000 to the NUGA National Council, signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the council and constituted the UNILAG-NUGA Local Organizing Committee (LOC) and its 14 sub-committees to drive the planning and preparations for the games.

The VC expressed concern that the games was supposed to have held in 2020, but the global COVID-19 pandemic disrupted things, adding that its sporting facilities are currently undergoing massive renovation and reconstruction to international standards to enable individual athletes to have one of their best lived experiences of sporting during the UNILAG-NUGA games.