Buhari’s cash: NSC pledges to pay players fully

Following an exclusive report published by The PUNCH on Wednesday on the monetary rewards President Muhammadu Buhari made to Nigerian athletes who excelled in their various fields in 2015, officials of the sports ministry have apologised and assured the affected players that they would get their cash in full.

The National Sports Commission paid some of the athletes on Tuesday but the female U-16 basketballers were paid N100,000 short of the N400,000 the President announced to them publicly at a reception held at the Presidential Villa in January.

On Thursday, The PUNCH spoke with the Director of Sports in the NSC, Mrs. Hauwa Kulu-Akinyemi, when nobody could provide the players’ answer to the shortfall. The director, who first argued that what the accounts section of the ministry paid each player was what was in the President’s speech, called back later to apologise and clarify the situation.

She said, “The accounts section is different from my office and those people work with papers but I have made detailed enquiries following your call. Nobody can tamper with the players’ money. What the NSC recommended to the President was N300,000 for the girls but it was raised to N400,000 at the Presidency and that was what the President read out to the public.

“But the original paper had been worked on by the accounts sections of both sides and that was why they sent down N300,000 for the girls, which we paid them. But before this time, a memo had been raised, which the Permanent Secretary sent across to the Presidency reminding them of the last minute changes and the need to send down the balance.

“We were faced with the challenge of holding down everybody’s money until we received the balance for the girls. But it was decided that it didn’t make sense holding down about N100m because of the remaining N1.2m. And so we decided to pay everybody and give them the balance as soon as we receive it.”

She then insisted that the Nigeria Basketball Federation officials should have explained to the players what happened instead of the players raising the alarm but our correspondent reminded her that it would have been more professional to brief the players first before paying them less. This she acknowledged and explained as an oversight.

But the NBBF officials told The PUNCH that they were not aware of the difference until the money was paid and the players complained.

The NBBF said, “We pleaded with the players to be calm until we get the details from the NSC. But the truth is that the NSC officials sidelined the federations in the process leading to the reception and the payment. And so we were not aware until we started receiving calls but we calmed them and assured them that it would be sorted out.”