Niger State will spend N75 million on the 18th National Sports festival taking place in Lagos later this month with 200 athletes and 50 officials expected to represent the state.

According to the Commissioner for Sports, Alhaji Hassan Abdullahi, who disclosed this to journalists after a meeting of the state executive in Minna Thursday, the state will participate in 19 events during the festival.

He stated that some of the events the state will be taking part in include athletics, para-athletics, basketball, boxing, chess and deaf sports (athletics).

Others, he said, are: handball, hockey, judo, kick boxing, scrabble, squash, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling.

Abdullahi said the state government has released about N75 million to the ministry for the preparation, participation and purchase of kits and equipment that will be used by athletes during the tournament.

The commissioner who said that Team Niger will do the state proud in Lagos, adding that camping of the athletes had commenced at two venues, Ahmadu Bahago Secondary School and the Women Teachers College in Minna.

He also stated that the new kits for the athletes would be unveiled to the public three days before the team departs for Lagos.

While appreciating the moral and financial support given to sports in the state by the Governor Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu administration, the commissioner explained that after the state participated in the sports retreat which took place at the Presidential Villa recently, the government is determined to develop sports in all its ramifications from the next financial year.