Diamond Bank Plc., Nigeria’s leading retail bank, will be the lead sponsor of the 24th edition of the Nigerian Universities Games Association (NUGA) competition.
The event, which will hold between February 12-22, 2014 at the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, will attract over 60 universities and 7,000 athletes that will feature in 15 different sports, including Track & Field, Badminton, Basketball, Chess, Cricket, Handball and Judo. Others are Hockey, Football, Swimming, Table tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis and Volleyball.
According to Mrs Ayona Trimnell, Head of Corporate Communications, Diamond Bank Plc, the bank’s support for the event is part of its sponsorship programmes targeted at supporting the dreams and aspirations of Nigerian youths.
She said: “As a responsible corporate citizen, we recognise the role competitive sports play in developing well-rounded youths. The NUGA Games provides that needed platform for sportsmanship and competitiveness, hence our decision to add it to our sponsorship portfolio to ensure that the youths get the best of the experience.”
In order to create better awareness for the Games beyond the vicinity of the host university, the bank has finalized plans for the airing of the daily highlights on: Supersport, CoolFM, Wazobia FM and Nigeria Info FM. The daily highlights will include news, interviews, results, side attractions, among others.
Trimnell added that the NUGA Games would also provide the bank a good platform to launch Diamond S.W.A.G., its newly designed product meant for the youth segment.
She said: “We have just developed a new product called the Diamond S.W.A.G. which we expect to create value for our young customers; to enable and empower them for the future. We see the NUGA fiesta as a good platform to launch this product and partner the students in building a secured future.”
Trimnell also informed that Diamond Bank has lined up a number of activities and side attractions to add to the fun and excitement of the event.
“The Bank is instituting a daily ‘NUGA Challenge’ at the Arena where interested students can come and ‘rep’ their respective universities”. Also participants will stand a chance to win N50k or N100k in the DiamondXtra Special NUGA draw at the Diamond S.W.A.G. Concert, plus lots of exciting giveaways, including a VIP ticket to the Diamond SWAG Concert which will feature a mystery guest artiste on the 22nd of February 2014,” she added.