Athletes who participated in the 22nd National Sports Festival(Gateway Games 2024) have a memorable outing that will be etched in their memories for years to come.
Team Ogun contingent, the host team, at a stage had to lock in other state contingents in their ramshackle Babcock University Hostel accommodation based on their anger flowing out from promises made by their state government which were not kept up to three days to the end of the fiesta.
Making transportation available from one sports event centre to the other became a huge joke as athletes, officials and the likes were most often stranded for hours as they await been conveyed to their next port of call.
The Babcock University Hostel accommodation was a sore affair as the place, as described by an athlete, who was one of the ‘lucky’ few that got accommodated there, was more of a lepers colony than the hype that the organisers inaundated the world with its claim of the best sports festival ever in Nigeria.
“Sir, there were bed bugs all over the Babcock University Hostel. It was such a very silly experience as we battle with the bed bugs as we prepare for our events,” an aggrieved athlete told Popular News.
On food, Popular News gathered that many athletes could not give their best as a result of food poisoning which led to most of them stooling uncontrollably as they get set for their events.
Additionally, most states were kept in the dark about the exact number of medals they won until two days after the games because the Main Organising Committee (MOC) whose duty was to make the updated table available daily didn’t meet up with its assignment as it was displaying outdated medals table.
An unwritten code of secrecy was allegedly imposed on athletes and officials not to escalate the poor performance of the organisers with huge sums of fine ranging from N500,000 and above imposed on all ‘stubborn’ aggrieved persons.
A worrisome situation for some teams was the dishonest attitude of some sports administrators. For instance, for Team Edo a week after the end of the fiesta the athletes are still battling the odds to get a week payment of the two weeks allowance promised them before the commencement of the games by the Edo State Sports Commission officials.
Also the promise made by the Chairman of the Commission, Desmond Enabulele, to give each medal winner N100,000 in addition to what they were promised by Governor Monday Okpebholo on the eve of the commencement of the games has still not been fulfilled.
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