By Solomon Nwoke
It emerged yesterday that all the data in the Chess event of the  ongoing National Sports Festival in Port Hacourt suddenly disappeared.

Officials simply reported them as “missing.”

It did not end there. Cycling events were postponed at the convenience of one of the states.
The combat sports have remained combatant to fair play. Results are traded.

In Track and Field as well as in many sports old some athletes who have attended up to three festivals and who could disguise themselves are competing against the rule that disqualifies them.

“What is happening here is no sports development,” Brown Ebewele yelled late Monday night.

The former commissioner of sports in Edo state and one time Decathlon champion fumed as he bared his mind.
“As far as I’m concerned I am expecting nothing from athletics, not even from the games in general because all we are seeing are old men and women participating in this festival under the name of  discovered athletes.

I’m baffled that we are discovering old men and women athletes. Almost everybody here is an adult and old enough to be men and women and we cannot be discovering 30-year old men and women and say we are discovering athletes. My position is that they should throw the festival open and stop this deceit that bars some athletes said to have aged on grounds of their many participation in the festival.

Imagine what is happening here. You cannot come to festival with intrigues to cheat. Athletes are cutting corners, officials are cutting corners, so what shall we achieve at the end? States want to win at all cost. Is that development? Some athletes here have competed in the festival more than three times but because they have not been winning they are here as discovered athletes.

The rule says that if you have competed in more than three festivals you are no longer eligible. But it is not working here. There are fundamental issues we must address if we want the festival to be a development programme. For now, it is not not and I blame the National Sports Commission.”

Shortly after Brown’s fuss Ogun and Edo officials opened up too.

Edo and Ogun are among the contenders for the title. They frowned at many results and the goings-on in Port Hacourt, saying that apart from the efforts of Rivers State to host and win the festival, the National Sports Commission, the organisers of the games, have “compromised on fair play.”

“We had our volleyball team disqualified over allegations of fielding none Nigerians but what about  some other states? There are such allegations against them but nothing has been done and nothing will be done to them. Must a hosting state win?,” a top citizen of Ogun queried?

Rivers State has not looked back in medal haulage. They lead comfortably.