The outgoing Sports Minister Solomon Dalung has disclosed that the yearly organised Okpekpe 10 km race has financially empowered the youths of this nation and also boosted the foreign reserves of Nigeria.
Dalung who praised the organisation of this year’s Okpekpe race as the best ever also urged Edo State and sponsors not to relent in their efforts to continue to make the competition the best organised in the world.
“I am happy that the quality of the athletes that have been participating in this Okpekpe 10km race has helped raised the status of the race.
“Some of the time returned in the competition is quite encouraging. The competition is one of the major competitions I would remember for a long time to come.
“Sometimes its a bit difficult to evaluate the value or contributions of sports because we are a community that still consider sports as recreation. But if one takes the statistics of what Nigeria has benefitted from this Opekpe race, I would say its encouraging.
“Lets take the tourism aspect of this competition year in year out we have so many athletes that have attended this competition from all over Africa and have visited Okpekpe. That has brought so much to our foreign reserves earnings.
“It has also empowered the youths of this country financially through winning huge sum of money as winners of their respective competitions”, Dalung disclosed to SportingLife at the Okpekpe 10 km race in Okpekpe, Edo State yesterday.