CRISIS looms between the country's athletes to the recently concluded London 2012 Paralympic games and the officials of the National Sports Commission (NOC) over the federal government largesse as the athletes are set to petition the Presidency.Nigeria's President, Goodluck Jonathan had announced monetary rewards to the athletes and their officials for making the country proud at the games during the ceremony in their honour penultimate weekend.Jonathan announced N5million for gold medalists, N3million for silver, N2.5m for bronze medalists, N500,000 for all athletes that did not win any medal and N2.5million each for all the accompanied officials, coaches, secretaries, medical teams and the loaders.But team officials alleged that they had been short-changed by the NSC officials with only the athletes being paid fully.It was revealed to Tribunesports by some of the officials that they only received N1million when the bank transaction alert came. A member of the medical team told Tribunesports that he got an alert for N1million while some coaches also confirmed the same thing when asked. The three officials according to investigation were paid N500,000 as against N2.5million announced by the president.The affected officials pleaded for anonymity but have all resolved to petition the Presidency wondering why the president should ask them to be paid some amount and they were paid another.Meanwhile, some of the federation secretaries kept sealed lips over this development when contacted the other officials even showed their bank alert to Tribunesports.'We have resolved to petition the Presidency over this development because this really took us by surprise. A clear statement made at the ceremony by the President and for us now to get alert (Wednesday and Tuesday) for another payment, we only need to know why this has happened. Maybe the president has changed his mind without telling us,' the officials said while chatting with Tribunesports Thursday.Meanwhile, Monday Emokpae, President , Paralympic Committee of Nigeria has expressed his displeasure in a chat with Tribunesports yesterday.''I am not happy this is happening. I have been making frantic effort to get the Director General (NSC) to clarify the issue but have not been able to reach him suceeded but I assure you Nigerians have not heard the last of this,'' he stated.
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