Nigeria will host the 13th edition of the ECOWAS African Wrestling Tournament, billed to be held between 4 and 10 March 2025.
The National Sports Commission, NSC, Chairman Mallam Shehu Dikko gave the assurance after playing host to the Director of Youth and Sports Development, ECOWAS, Francis Njoaguani, yesterday,y, 17 December 20,25, in Abuja.
"I want to assure you that we are committed. We will do everything possible to host the tournament. And we don't want it to be just a one-off. We want to do more of these tournaments,' Dikko explained to the ECOWAS Sports Director.
Njoaguani came to ascertain the country's preparedness to stage the event, which will be held two months before ECOWAS' 50th anniversary.
Aside from traditional wrestling, Dikko expressed Nigeria's readiness to host other sporting events from ECOWAS.
"Mr President is committed to having first-class facilities in the country, starting with the Abuja Stadium. We want to fix our stadium to make it available to host all sorts of tournaments. We are open to hosting daily events in this stadium. So you can bring, not just the traditional wrestling, but bring other sports that we can make our facilities available," he stated.
"The more events we can host, the more we can activate the sports economy we are trying to advance because anytime you host an event you create a value chain of activities, market activists, sustained jobs, wealth distribution and all of that. We are ready to partner with ECOWAS to bring critical events to Nigeria, not just in Abuja, but any State in Nigeria at all that is capable of hosting your events."
Dikko added that such events would help to keep the youths positively engaged and deal with restiveness in the entire ECOWAS subregion.
"All the issues we have around security in ECOWAS, we can use sports as a foundation and pathway to see how we can get that mellowed down. So that our youths can have their energies redirected into doing the right things."
Njoaguani seized the opportunity to inform the NSC chairman on the 3rd edition of the ECOWAS Abuja International Marathon, also slated for March 2025, which Dikko also assured of the Commission's commitment to ensure its success and more value addition to the economy.
By Kelechi Bernard @woramangra
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