NSF: Oyo Athletes groan, 3 months after unpaid government’s cash promises

Athletes that represented Oyo State at the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival (NSF), held in Benin where Oyo placed 6th with 103 medals are groaning over inability to receive the cash promises made by Governor Seyi Makinde three months after the reception held for the medalists at the governor’s office.

Governor Makinde had earlier promised to reward a gold medalist with Five Hundred Thousand Naira ( N500,000), Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira ( N350, 000) for silver medalist and Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N250,000) for each bronze medalist, while coaches will get Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N500,000) each when he received the state’s contingents to the last festival in his office on April 21 2021.

He, also pledged to facilitate the payment within two weeks after his pronouncement. However, according to the athletes, ‘no kobo’ was received from the state government.

“For each gold medal, we would pay N500,000, for each silver medal, we would give N350,000 and for each bronze medal, we would give N250,000 and for the coaches irrespective of the medal won, we would give each coach N500,000″, Makinde had earlier promised.

This development has really dampened the morale of the athletes with great negative impact on their psyches as it was evident and written on the faces of the athletes who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It would be recalled that the governor while hosting the winning contingents of Oyo State in his office said, “whatever pronouncement I will make now will be fulfilled within two weeks as we’re not going to promise you what we can’t do.

“When we came in, we saw the file on athletes; the medalists at the 2018 event. People can make promises and not keep them. But without mincing words, we met several promises and we had to investigate why those promises were not fulfilled but we found out that there was no intention from the initial point to fulfill the promises.

“If I promise you that I want to do something, I should start from the request, the first approval, more work, next approval, and the final approval. Unfortunately, none of that was done when we came in. But we picked it up and within the limited resources that were available to us, we fulfilled at least a percentage of those promises. And I believe even for this particular event, we encouraged the Oyo State Sports Council to give something to the medalists instantly as soon as they confirmed winning a medal.

“I have listened to the requests put forward and we will look at it. One assurance that I can give to you is that Oyo State will continue to encourage its own athletes to even do more.

“I have set a target of at least 100 gold medals for the next Sports Festival and everything that will aid in realising that vision, we will put in place.

Governor Makinde added that provisions for all their allowances, if not all has not been made and if not paid, its probably pending with the accountant general, but contrary to these claims, the athletes said they are yet to get anything.