President Muhammadu Buhari has set machinery in place to reward athletes who excelled in various sporting endeavours accordingly in January 2016. The Minister of Youth and Sports Solomon Dalung confirmed the date in Abuja on Tuesday.
“Reward for excellence is part of this government’s agenda especially for youths in Nigeria. So we are working hard to offset the backlog of recognition for hard work by Nigeria athletes. We are looking at January so that we start the New Year on a clean slate,” Dalung said.
Sportsmen who won laurels at various international competitions last year have yet to be officially received by the Federal Government. Among those yet to be rewarded are the Golden Eaglets of 1985 who were promised houses for winning the maiden edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in China during Buhari’s reign as Head of State.
Others are the national men’s basketball team, D’Tigers who won the 2015 Africa Basketball Championship in Tunisia, Team Nigeria to the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa; the World Scrabble Champion; the national U-23 football team that won gold in the Africa U-23 Championship in Senegal and the Eaglets that won the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile among others.