Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, Minister of Works and Housing, has promised to provide N500,000 to the 2022 Nigerian Bar Association Annual General Conference (NBA-AGC) Female Football Competition.
This was disclosed in a statement released on Wednesday by Tobenna Erojikwe, Chairman of the NBA Technical Committee on Conference Planning (TCCP).
The 2022 NBA-male AGC’s and female inter-branch football events are scheduled to take place from Thursday, August 18, to Tuesday, August 23, 2022.
Erojikwe thanked the Minister for his assistance and promised to add the funds to the prize fund for the women’s football competition.
“In fulfillment of our pledge to dedicate every amount received as sponsorship for the female football competition to the prize money, the above sum shall be applied to that purpose,” Erojikwe said in the statement titled “Re: Prizes for NBA Inter-branch Female Football Competition”.
“We have also received requests for sponsorship information from other sources and are hopeful that the pot will increase,” he said.
On a lighter side, Erojikwe noted that with the addition of N500,000 to the prize money for the female football competition that had already been announced, there was now the “real possibility of a huge disparity in the prize winnings for the male and female NBA inter-branch football competitions in favour of the latter”.
The TCCP had previously published a notification announcing N200,000 for the female football competition and N500,000 for the male inter-branch competition. However, the controversy caused by the disparity in the awards given to the winning teams called for a clarification from the TCCP.
“I hope that this does not generate a similar complaint of discrimination by the male football teams,” Erojikwe said.
He reaffirmed the NBA’s satisfaction with the level of interest the AGC 2022 activities had attracted and expressed the expectation that the conference would be fruitful.
