Athletes, officials in Niger grumble over unpaid allowances

Over 140 athletes and officials that participated in the just concluded National Youth Games held in Ilorin, Kwara State are now grumbling over their unpaid allowances.

The athletes and officials who have been visiting the state sports council in Minna since their arrival over two weeks ago now wants Governor Abubakar Sani Bello to come to their rescue.

According to investigations, it has been revealed that officials of the state sports council have also been avoiding the athletes since their arrival.

Extra Time gathered that the athletes and their officials were being owed over N49m.

According to the findings before the athletes departed Minna for the games they were told that they would be paid only for three days pending when the ministry of finance will release the bulk of the approved budget.

They were told that the sports council had to borrow N10m from one staff to enable the team leave for Ilorin.

One of the officials who preferred anonymity said each athlete was given N9000 for three days while the officials got N15,000 for the same period.

The money according to the findings was far below the newly approved basic traveling allowance BTA of N12,000 for senior civil servants and N5000 for junior workers per day.

However according to the official for the period the games lasted, 10 days, nobody surfaced to pay the balance of the remaining 7 days to both the officials and athletes.

“We learnt that the commissioner came to Ilorin but he did not visit us in the camp, he left for Minna without seeing any of us,” the official said.

All efforts to speak to the Commissioner for Sports Alhaji Mammam Musa was abortive as he was always said to be in a meeting.

Niger state placed 10th on the overall medals table winning 6 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze in the tournament win by Delta state where Akwa ibom came second and Ondo state third.