The festival, which began in 1973, was not only aimed at discovering talents at the grassroots but to nurture them to national and international stardom.
Adepoju, in an interview, said that the aims of the festival in his opinion in recent years, have not been achieved.
“A glaring example of the failure of the sports festival was the country’s inability to get talents that would represent the country in international competitions like the Olympics.
“Talents discovered at the various sports festival held in the past should have been well trained and properly nurtured to represent the country in competitions like the Olympics,” he said.
The 3SC manager said it was sad that 39 years after the festival’s inception, Nigeria was still unable to groom outstanding athletes for major international competitions.
The manager then called on the festival’s Main Organising Committee to ensure that the competitions were organised in a way that would help in talent discovery.
Reports say that the 18th edition of the festival tagged: “Eko 2012,” will hold between Nov. 27 and Dec. 9
“The LOC of the 18th National Sports Festival should ensure it stages a smooth event that will create the platform for discovering talents and nurturing them to stardom,’’ Adepoju said.
He also urged the Lagos State Government to beef up security and put measures in place to ensure that the traffic situation in the state would not affect the competition.
“I hope that the Lagos State government will heighten the level of security so that participating states do not suffer any form of embarrassment during the festival,” he said
He also urged the Federal Ministry of Works to speed up work on the Third Mainland Bridge in other to ease traffic situation in the metropolis during the festival.
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