By Onwa Ekor, Calabar
Cross River governor, Prince Bassey Otu, has charged contractors and consultants handling the 2 billion dollars Calabar sports resort and leisure hotels, to obey regulations.
The project which is the remodeling of the Calabar stadium hostel to the Calabar Sports and Leisure hotel, will
see to the state having a 72 rooms international sports hostel, 400 capacity hamlets, world class gym, refurbished volleyball and basketball courts, an automated parking lot and the project, expected to be completed by December this year.
Speaking at the ground breaking ceremony held at Brig. U J Esuene stadium in Calabar, the governor enjoined them to follow all regulatory steps and put up a solid edifice that would be a cynosure of all eyes.
“We want to see you obey regulations, we want to see you follow all the regulatory steps and put a very solid edifice in place and of course we will be proud of you.
“We want to see a completely remodeled and refurbished stadium, as a matter of fact, when this stadium was set up, we did not have the population that we do now, now we have quadruple the population, so we need proper expansion which government is looking into.
“Put things together to compliment and make the place a rallying point as it will be a beehive of activity attracting soldiers, tourists and many more others,” Otu directed.
Continuing, the governor who earlier paid tributes to the Pioneer military Administrator of the state, Brig. U J Esuene, for putting up the stadium, remarked that the state has sports facilities which at the moment are over due, hence the need to inject life into the sector.
Otu also reminded the contractors that “we did not set timelines, you came up with timelines, I know that definitely before Carnival, this Resort will be ready.”
Deputy Chairman, Board of Director of Finance, Edulumen Nigeria Limited, Otunba Adisa Fapohunda, assured that his company will not bring down any building in the stadium, rather would be preserving all the memories as well as other sporting facilities.
Fapohunda who disclosed that the project cost stands at about two billion dollars, maintained that with over 70 years experience as a company, it would offer the state an integrated sporting facility.
For the duo of Managing Director, Square Builders Nigeria Limited, Usman Bashir and Dr. Samjeh Oscar of Edulumen Nigeria limited, the project would be delivered before this year’s Carnival, even as the funding from start to finish would be handled by the companies.
Earlier, Cross River commissioner for sports, Agnes Atsu, argued that since government cannot sponsor sports development alone because of its capital intensive nature of funding, the Ministry decided to collaborate with private sectors in order to promote and develop the sector.
“We are thinking outside the box to make investors come and turn our hitherto moribund facilities into a world class sporting facility that will attract a lot of international hosting rights and other hostings to Cross River, thereby generating revenue for the state, as well as groom our grassroots sports.
The event was organized by the Cross River Ministry of sports development in partnership with Square Builders Nigeria Limited and Edulumen Nigeria Limited.
