The coaches who guided Nigerian athletes to success at the last Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England are still seething with rage and have vowed to take their case to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Senate committee on sports.
They accused the Sports Minister Sunday Dare and his adviser Mary Onyali of dishonouring them, by not giving them recognition during the presentation of medal winners to the President and also undermining their efforts by rewarding them with amounts not commiserate to their hard work.
All the coaches whose athletes won medals in all the sports, have resolved to take a stand and prevent such humiliation in the future. Speaking on behalf of the group of coaches was Gabriel Opuana, he said: “It was not fair how they treated the coaches in Abuja… without the coaches there would be no medals.
“Whatever success the minister is basking in or whatever victory lap he is doing today are the handiwork of coaches who are under the sun working everyday.
” Ministry not recognising coaches is a sad development, coaches not happy. He’s been long enough on the seat to know that coaches are relevant to the scheme of things.
“During Goodluck Jonathan’s time when he rewarded the athletes with N5m, he gave coaches N7m…are we not supposed to improve on it? Most coaches are not talking now about their predicament, because they fear they would be dropped from the national team.
“From our findings we discovered that it was Mary Onyali and one Bashir that advised that the coaches whose athletes won gold be given N1.5 and also that they shouldn’t be given national awards.
“We the coaches have resolved to take our case to President Muhammadu Buhari and also the Senate sports committee. We need to make it clear that coaches should not be used and dumped, when next we are going out it has been written in black and white what would be our benefits just like they do for football coaches.”
But speaking on the issue, Onyali denied influencing the cash awards paid to the coaches: “No. I did not give such advice to the Minister,” she said.
However,one of the coaches said:”How can we have someone like Onyali, an athlete who gone through the system near the minister and things like these are happening? It is rather unfortunate”
