President Muhammadu Buhari has rewarded the 2017 AfroBasket winning women’s team, D’Tigress as he earlier promised.
The promise came after the team led by coach Sam Vincent won the championship in Mali to qualify for the 2018 FIBA World Cup in Spain.
According to the Special Adviser on Media to the Sports Minister, Nneka Ikem Anibeze, each of the players got N1,000,000 (One million Naira) while five coaching crew members got N500,000 (Five hundred thousand Naira) each.
The President received the players on August 30, 2017 during the Federal Executive meeting to appreciate them with the promise that he would reward their efforts.
Speaking after the President’s gesture to the players, Minister of Youth and Sports Solomon Dalung said sports in Nigeria is moving to greater heights through the unprecedented support of President Buhari.
“In Mr President’s usual way of showing appreciation to our sports men and women who made the nation proud, he received the team at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday August 30, 2017 during the Federal Executive meeting.
“History is made today as His Excellency, Mr President has fulfilled his promise to the heroic Afrobasket team by doling out the sum of One million Naira (N1,000,000) to each of the players and Five hundred thousand (500,000) to each of the officials totaling Seventeen million, five hundred thousand Naira (N17,500,000).”
In his response, the Vice President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, Mr Babs Ogunade, thanked the President for redeeming his promise to reward D’Tigress for their excellence and hard work.
“Over a period of time, administrations have made promises to athletes and failed but with the change mantra, this administration promised to reward the gold winning basketball team and they have fulfilled their promise.
“Like Oliver Twist, we will always ask for more. As you are aware, we qualified for the World Cup in Spain next year and we are gearing up for that as well as the Commonwealth Games. We ask for the federal government’s support ahead of all these assignments although, we are also looking outward to get sponsorship so that we don’t put everything on the government. We however thank you so much and look forward to seeing that all these come to fruition,” Ogunade said.
Packaged by Lanre Olabisi
