NSC: Emerging Abuja Initiative Aligns with our Vision of Sports City The
State Correspondent
The National Sports Commission has observed with excitement that the new initiative of Emerging Abuja to rebrand the city to a world-class status shares common alignment with its vision and plan to establish a sports city.
Speaking to the officials of ‘Emerging Abuja’ in his office, Chairman of the National Sports Commission, Mallam Shehu Dikko, said the new idea to rebrand Abuja’s identity that will be the pride of its residents, clearly aligns with and speaks to the NSC’s drive and fundamental objective.
In his words, “we are working to set up a sports city here in Abuja that will have a place for entertainment arenas, hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, motor and amusement parks, among others. In the coming days, we are going to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Arts and Culture in this regard.
“We are also working to turn around the main bowl of the national stadium by putting on proper grass which will not only be for football alone, but to host other social events too”, he stated.
The chairman further highlighted what the commission is doing to turn around its facilities.
“We are already working on the procurement for our facilities in Abuja and in other states: Lagos, Oyo and Kaduna. We are in talks with the state governments on this and also engaging with the private sectors to achieve all of these”, he added.
He assured his guests that the National Sports Commission is already on track to realise the key objectives of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, Renewed Hope Initiative for sports.
He congratulated them for coming up with a new idea that is in line with the international standards of modern cities in the world. Dikko sees it as a welcome development. He assured that there are so many areas of shared interest for Emerging Abuja to work together with the commission.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman and Program Coordinator of Emerging Abuja, Hon. Kenneth Ibe-Kalu said they were in the commission for several reasons.
“We are here to inform you of our new idea of the re-engineering of the residents of Abuja to have a new identity as ‘Abujans’, as it is with Lagosians in Lagos.
“The new city is going to function ninety per cent tourism, culture and entertainment, which will be the first of its kind in this country; it is not an estate”, he said.
He added that Emerging Abuja is developing a ‘Groovy December’ which has a series of activities with thirty-five plans of events that will take place over sixteen days, and it will commence from 15 to 30 December 2025.
He enumerated other activities that are lined up, such as creating tourism, culture and entertainment that will attract Nigerians in diaspora and foreigners alike; to nine hundred brands of markets; Abuja Night of Sound and sites.
Others are language competition, traditional boxing and wrestling, karate competition, car racing, Groovy December auto show and Ecowas at 50 competition.
Hon.Ibe-Kalu mentioned that at the top of the item on their discussion was to request the commission to have the main bowl of M.K.O. Abiola for their sixteen-day events.
The high point of the visit is the presentation of the Emerging Abuja detailed program and other items to the chairman by their patron, His Excellency Abdulmalik Mahmoud, the former deputy governor of Bauchi State.
Dr (Mrs) Kehinde Ajayi
FCAI, ANIPR,
Director (Information and PR)
24th July, 2025.
