… As NNPC win games
Francis Ajuonuma, Lagos
Players and officials of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) have been given a huge part on the back for their courageous performance in the football event at the 18th edition of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Games (NOGIG 2020) which ended at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos on Saturday.
The DPR football team, making its’ first appearance in the football event of the biennial competition were beaten 2-0 in the final by the more experienced Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) side as they settle for the silver medal.
Speaking with The Authority at the end of the highly competitive and entertaining football final, the Industrial Relation Manager of DPR, Muritala Alimi described the silver medal won by the company in football event as valuable as gold medal.
“It’s very sad when you loose the gold medal, however, being our first time in the football event in NOGIG we came out to make a statement and that statement is what we can state to our winning the silver medal which to us is as good as gold,” he said, while attributing their success at the games to the unflinching support of the management DPR.
Meanwhile, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) showed the class they are made of as they dominated the other 11 participating companies after a total of 48 medals made up of 13 gold, 16 silver and 19 bronze medals to emerge as the overall winners of NOGIG 2020.
Team NNPC were impressive in athletics, tennis, table tennis, squash, volleyball and badminton amongst others and dominated in the final of the football event where they defeated hard fighting DPR 2-0 to win the football gold while Total recorded a 2-1 victory over Exon Mobi to win the third place match.
Second position on the final medals table went to Shell Petroleum, who amassed 13 gold, 8 silver and 10 bronze while NLNG took the third position after garnered a total of 6 gold, 7 silver and 10 bronze with Chevron taking the fourth position with 6 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze medals.
Special Guest of Honour and Minister of State For Petroleum, Temipre Sylva, in his closing remarks commended the participating teams for their outstanding performance, friendship and sportsmanship, just as he acknowledged the organisers for a job well done.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mallam Mele Kolo Kyari, noted that the games since inception in 1986 has grown to become a formidable platform for the promotion of healthy competition amongst the various participants in the industry.
“I would like to congratulate the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for working very hard over the last few months to stage yet another befitting edition of this prestigious competition.
“To our various sportsmen and women, it’s my belief that after your involvement in the various games, you would go back to unleash your potentials towards maximum productivity and effective service delivery for the benefit of not only your respective organisations, but the entire Industry,” he said.
The 12 companies that participated in this year’s games include, NNPC, Shell Nigeria, NLNG, Chevron, Total, NCDMB, Exon Mobil, DPR, ENI, Seplat, Eroton and PTI.
