The University of Calabar has began the Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA) preliminaries for Zone K.
Six Universities; the University of Calabar, University of Cross River, University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State University, Michael Okpara University and Abia State University are participating in the games hosted by UNICAL.
Declaring the games open at the Abraham Ordia Stadium in UNICAL, Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Prof.
Florence Obi, said that the games was one of the ways of promoting local content.
Professor Obi, who said that sports instill discipline among the youths, urged “the participating universities to see the competition as a way to showcase their talents and creativity.
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Welcoming the participating universities to UNICAL for the games, the VC also urged them to exhibit fair play in all the competing games.
Professor Obi said; “The event is going to be a huge success; we have worked hard to get here and to the glory of God we are happy that the athletes from six universities in Zone K arrived at Calabar safely for the games.
“For us as a university, we are very happy because this event is preparatory for the bidding that is yet to come in the next few months.
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“As an institution, we are bidding for the main competition which has been scheduled to hold in 2024 and I guess the national will want to see how far we can go using the preliminary games.
“That is why we want to showcase our university by giving out our very best for the games.
We want to ensure that everything goes on successfully so that they will know that we have the capacity to bid and host NUGA in 2024.
“We are happy because games keep the world going and it instills discipline among the students,” she said.
Chairman of Zone K, NUGA games, Dr Joseph Ukpong, said that the University of Calabar hosted NUGA games last in 1990.
He assured the Vice-Chancellor that Zone K would support her in her bid to host the 27th NUGA game in 2024.
Acting Director of Sport, UNICAL, Dr Blessing Anam, thanked the NUGA Council and Zone K for giving them the backing to host the prelims.
The opening games in the football category, team UNICAL defeated their counterpart from UNICROSS by 2-0.
Other competing games are; badminton, basketball, chess, judo, athletics, karate, table tennis, taekwondo, lawn tennis and volleyball.
NAN/Mercy Chukwudiebere
UNICAL begins NUGA preliminaries games