Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The participation of Team Nigeria in the Tokyo Japan 2020 Olympics received a major boost on Tuesday with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and Kisarazu City, Japan for a pretournament camping.
Speaking shortly after signing the MoU, Sports Minister Sunday Dare announced that the development tallies with the new direction of early preparation for tournaments.
“About three weeks ago, Nigeria started, in earnest, its Olympics preparations. We had waited for the completion of the Doha Athletics Championship before starting officially our preparations. We have less than nine months and where the pre-games camping will take place is critical to our preparations for Tokyo 2020,” he said.
“I am glad that we are able to follow up on initiatives of previous Ministers and Ambassadors who have acted rightly on behalf of this country,” he noted.
The Minister equally expressed gratitude to the Mayor of Kisarazu City, Yoshikuni Watanabe, for keeping faith with the proposal initiated under the previous administration, assuring that Nigeria with the rest of the world looks forward to Tokyo 2020.
While highlighting the importance of the visit, the Minister said: “This meeting offers us an opportunity to formalize the pre-games camping with the city of Kisarazu. So, even after the MOU, there are still a couple of issues we have to work on together, but the MOU establishes an understanding with the City and also the country of Nigeria.
“I have read the MOU, it is in good faith and we trust that that good faith will pervade the entire period that would be engaged.
“We are still coming up with a list of sports that would be camped in Kisarazu. So, we will provide needed information going forward and we should perhaps from now, try to maintain the feedback on a weekly basis so as to be on the same page,” he assured.
The Minister also praised Japan for the country’s preparedness to host the world, stressing that though he has not been to Japan, everyone who has visited brought back nice words about the beauty of the country and it’s preparedness to host the Olympics and the world.
“The Ministry looks forward to a successful pre-games camping and also a very successful Olympics itself,” he said.
Mayor Yoshikuni Watanabe expressed gratitude to the Minister for hosting the delegation, adding that his city is proud identify with Nigeria because of its football loving nature.