UI Finish as 16th at NUGA’22 as UNIJOS Wins Hosting Rights For 2024.
Team UI has emerged at the 16th best participating school in NUGA’22 as the games ended in UNILAG today. In what looked like the University of Ibadan’s best performance in recent years, she amassed a total of 20 medals with 2 of those being gold medals from the chess competition on the last day of the competition.
The overall winner of the competition UNIPORT amassed a total of 120 medals to lead the medals table and followed widely behind by UNILAG, the host university with 86 medals.
The closing ceremony held the university sports complex with a resounding closing ceremony befitting for a well-organized sports competition that brought together 73 universities across Nigeria and served the best of amateur sports in the country over the past 10 days. The event itself is unarguably the best NUGA competition that Nigeria has ever witnessed in the 26 editions of the biannual sports competition.
Apart from sports, the competition provided an opportunity for entertainment and youthlike expression with the Eko Entertainment village, an initiative of the local organising committee of the competition. The Eko Entertainment village served as an avenue for rest after a filled day of work for the athletes and supporters to unwind and relax. While the entertainment village opened, it hosted musicians such as the fast-rising Afro-pop sensation, Asake, Music-comedian Kenny Blaq amongst several other entertainers.
One of the highlights of the night was the presentation of the ABU contingents who go engaged during the competition to the crowd at the closing ceremony. The Vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof Ogundipe invited both individuals to the stage and gave them his blessings. He stated that such acts were one of the remarkable testimonies of NUGA’22.
Also, debutants at the NUGA games, Nile University who participated in just 5 competitions at the games but amassed a total of 38 medals and finished in 3rd position got a trophy to acknowledge and celebrate their resilience in the competition as nobody ever gave them a chance to achieve such remarkable feat in the competition. Furthermore, the best-behaved university award was awarded to the Benson Idahosa University of Benin.
The closing ceremony ended with a scintillating performance from Bella Shmurda and Small Doctor, the putting off of the NUGA torch of Unity and the presentation of hosting right to UNIJOS for the 2024 edition of the NUGA game. Also, there was a tribute to the iconic music legend Sound Sultan to die in 2022 in the United States after losing a long-standing battle with cancer.
This year’s competition will go down as the best in the history of the games, it cost UNILAG a whopping sum of 3.2 Billion Naira and most definitely it’s worth every penny.
