OLYMPICS: “No gold, no silver, no bronze, N2.3 bn down the drain”

LAGOS—The story of Nigeria at the 2012 London Olympics is “No gold, no silver, no bronze, N2.3 billion down the drain.”

And now a top Nigerian sports official who is a member of an international sports federation wants the federal government to compel the sports ministry to account for how they spent the N2.3 billion government released for the Olympic Games which ended in London yesterday. He would not have his name on print.

He said the ministry should disclose how much they released to each sports association that presented a team to the Olympic Games.  Athletics, Weightlifting, Taekwondo(athletes) Canoeing (one athlete), Wrestling, Basketball, Table Tennis and Boxing associations presented teams at the games. All the athletes were 51. The number of officials was still unknown as there were many who were not accredited and, consequently, were not useful to the athletes... They stayed in their hotels to watch the games on television. This irked the Nigerian official and he described the action of the ministry as “wasteful.”