Engineer Valentine Buraimoh, chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government, his Chief of Staff Segun Idris, founder of the Amuwo Odofin Games and chairman of the Local Organising Committee Seun Ayeni, and sponsors of the games are among those present at the press conference.
The Mini Sports Festival, which began in 2017 with a second edition in 2019, are scheduled to take place only on weekends in November, from the 6th to the 28th.
Athletes will compete in 17 sports, including football, basketball, volleyball, chess, scrabble, swimming, athletics, table tennis, tennis, cycling, drought, and others.
The games will be held throughout Amuwo Odofin, with venues including Mile 2 Primary School, FHA Field, FHA Tennis Club, and Darius Sports Bar.
In an interview with journalists, LOC chairman and founder of the festival Ayeni stated, “I’ve been working on this sporting festival with some of my friends, colleagues, and community members since 2017.” Yes, I’m the founder, but that doesn’t mean I’m the end-all and be-all; we’re a group of guys trying to make something happen in our community.
“This is the third edition; the first took place in 2017, and the second in 2019.” Because of the glamour, we decided to hold it every two years.”
Ayeni discussed the games available as well as the age groups in some of the sports.
“We had 16 games in the previous two editions, but this year we’re adding one more game, a five-aside tournament.” Football, basketball, volleyball, chess, scrabble, swimming, table tennis, tennis, drought, and cycling are among the games available. Some of these games are age-graded; we have U-13, U-17, and open divisions. Chess, scrabble, and swimming, for example, are age-graded sports. In AmuwoGames, there is also a mini 10km marathon.”
Ayeni stated that the participants are Amuwo residents.
“Those who will participate are Amuwo residents; in fact, registration has begun, and as of this morning, approximately 600 people had registered.” We will still have to do some screening from this 600, and some people will have to go through medical checks, so we may end up with about 500 athletes to participate in these games.”
Ayeni also commented on the inspiration for the games, saying, “We saw that the youths are very energetic.” It happened during an election year in 2017, when people were very agitated. And because Amuwo Odofin is a bit volatile, we just thought of something because the youths were very agitated at the time. So we decided to do something to divert these young people’s attention away from politics and toward something else, and we founded AmuwoGames. It was an effective tool for reducing youth restiveness and promoting youth development.”
Kunle Ologun Foundation, Lanre Shittu Motors Nigeria Limited, Dream Rite, Olatokunbo Foundation, Hon. Mojisola Macaulay (a.k.a. Mama Amuwo), Alex Pharmacy, Perception Technologies, Darius Turf, and other corporate sponsors were present at the press venue.