As preparations for the National Institute for Sports’ Silver Jubilee celebrations gather momentum, individuals, brands, companies and sportsmen and women are strategically positioning for active involvement in the all-important event.
Among other things, the Institute will be recognizing different companies, brands, individuals and sportsmen and women who have contributed to the development of sports over the years in Nigeria.
To flag off the two-day event, a public lecture with the theme, “Activating Sports Potentials: Quality, Economy and Lifestyle” under the chairmanship of the HonourableMinister of Sports and Youth
Development, Barrister Solomon Dalung,will hold in the morning of Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at Civic Centre on Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria Island, Lagos while an Awards/Gala Night holds in the evening of the same day at the same venue.
This will be followed, next day, by a combined convocation ceremony holding at the NIS Arena inside National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.
Director/CEO, National Institute for Sports, Dr. Eke Kingdom, disclosed that for some time now, some rebranding efforts had been on-going t the institute all of which would be sustained even after the celebrations.
In his words: “We are also rebranding and marketing NIS. We are going into our Silver Jubilee celebration and convocation which was last held about 12 years ago. We are doing this in partnership with Marcoms agency. We are rebranding the institute by doing these things that we have not been doing in the past”
He added that henceforth the convocation ceremony of students would be done regularly, opining that when this is done, it would encourage new students to be sure that when they are through with their studies, they would do their convocation ceremony.“If we are able to do the convocation ceremony of this backlog of students from 2005 to 2018 and finish it; it is going to be an annual event, henceforth”, he concluded.
Kingdom, however, stressed that for NIS to be well recognized globally, the Federal Government has to come in by improving the institute’s budgetary allocation and its staff overhead.
He pointed out that with such increment; NIS would comfortably replace most of its dilapidated infrastructure as that would help its sports men and sports women do tremendously well.
The event which was earlier slated for the month of January was shifted to March due to the general elections. Nonetheless, preparations for the NIS celebrations have been intensified and efforts have been made to mobilize the institute’s products and other stakeholders spread across Nigeria and beyond.
