Minister meets Bureau of Public Enterprises on sports infrastructure rehabilitation

By Femi Atolagbe
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The Minister of Youth and Sports Development Mr. Sunday Dare, in continuation of the process of rehabilitating the National Stadium Surelere, Lagos and the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja, met with representatives of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) on yesterday in his office at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja.

The Minister who has been in touch with the BPE and other bodies to ensure private funding and commercialization of sports in the country which is an integral part of his administration, said they are at the point of documentation after several processes

“The BPE along with the ITRC are critical partners with whom we have been having conversations and now  have reached the point where we are putting together documents so that we can have private funds for sports development.

“We have started the process because we witnessed certain changes sometime in November, there is a new commitment to look at it in a holistic manner such that we can use the National Stadium Surelere, Lagos and the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja for full commercialization.”

The Minister stated that all was being done in line with global benchmarks and separable standards, following the global template and expressed hope that the project would be ready in 10-16 months.

In response, Mr. Alex Okoh who is the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises expressed optimism in the success of the projects, adding that they had all elements in place to deliver in a timely manner with the political will coming from the Minister and the Nigerian Government.