By Chris Njoku
The University of Calabar (UNICAL) in partnership with MediaVision Limited has disclosed that the winner of the mascot design competition for the Nigeria Universities Games Association (NUGA) 2026, would go home with N150,000.
The revelation which was made in a meeting between the sports marketing company and UNICAL on Friday, November 10, 2023, in Calabar also noted that the first and second runners-up will get N100,000 and N50,000 respectively.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the biennial sporting events for universities will be hosted by the University of Jos (UNIJOS) in 2024 and UNICAL in 2026.
Speaking at the meeting, Prof. Florence Obi, Vice-Chancellor of UNICAL said they were partnering with MediaVision to raise funds to host the best NUGA games ever in the nation’s history.
She said UNICAL hosted the NUGA games over 30 years ago and wants to re-enact that history by hosting the games in 2026 by starting early.
“Towards the end of 2024, a team from NUGA will be coming to the institution to inspect our facilities to see the state of our preparedness.
“And from what they told us earlier, if we are not ready, the hosting right will be given to another university, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) to be precise and we don’t want that.
“We can’t wait to see things being put in place, we want to start a number of things, so, I urge MediaVision to go all out and help us market NUGA 2026 and raise funds to help us host the best games,” she said.
On his part, Mr Fela Bank-Olemoh, Co-founder of MediaVision Limited said they are confident of working with UNICAL to put together a wonderful NUGA game come 2026.
Bank-Olemoh said they would do all they need to do to ensure that the resources needed to get the facilities ready for the effective hosting of the games are made available.
According to him, the mascot design competition will be open to only UNICAL Students and will run from Nov. 9 to Dec. 7, 2023.
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“The mascot will have to speak to this competition and will be created by a student of UNICAL because it will be thrown open to them.
“While the mascot will be used to drive everything for the competition, we will also have student ambassadors and social media influencers to continue to create awareness of the games both within the school and beyond.”