Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state has promised to host a glamorous and best ever National Sports Festival come year 2020.
The Governor made this promise after the Minister of Sports Solomon Dalung confirmed the state as host of the next edition while declaring the 19th edition of the Festival closed on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday.
Governor Obaseki in his speech disclosed, “In his epochal speech to the House of Commons on August 20, 1940, the renowned British statesman, Sir Winston Churchill who was Prime Minister at the time, said and I quote:
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.
Churchill was referring to the monumental sacrifice of the valiant British airmen who had taken the battle to Hitler and his Third Reich during the Second World War.
In that speech, Churchill spoke of the changed nature of war since the first global war of 1914. He said the war of 1945 unlike the one of 1914 was “a conflict of strategy, organisation, technical apparatus, science, mechanics, and morale”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, taking cue from the great British statesman, I and the people of Edo State assure you that the confidence reposed in us would be justified. There will not come a time anyone will have cause to regret this momentous decision you have taken to hand us this hosting right.
Like the valiant British fighter pilots of World War II we will take every step necessary, make every sacrifice needed, and climb every height necessary to deliver the best Games in the annals of the Sports Festival.
There will be challenges on the way, no doubt but we are Edo people. We have the men who can do the job and the facilities that will facilitate performance.
Whatever challenges there are, we will overcome because Edo people tread were even lions do not. Like our warriors of old, we will slay every foe and surmount every obstacle to succeed.
The 2020 Sports Festival will be different from any previously hosted and any that will come after it. Perhaps it can only be surpassed in splendour and organisation the next time Edo State hosts it afterwards.
The Edo 2020 Sports Festival will be a festival thriving on “strategy, organisation, technical apparatus, science, mechanics, and morale”.
We make a solemn promise today that we will give it our all and at the end of the day everyone would say of the 2020 Games, “this is our festival in which we are well pleased”, the Governor declared.