President Goodluck Jonathan has announced cash gifts for some sportsmen and women who did the nation proud at global tournaments.
The president announced the gifts at the State House in Abuja during a dinner he organised in their honour. Each of the gold medalists in the last Commonwealth Games in Glasgow led by Blessing Okagbare and Power Lifting Championships in Dubai got N2.5 million, silver medalists got N1.5m each and bronze medalists, N1million each. The president doled out N1m each to coaches at the two championships, N700,000 each to officials at the Commonwealth Games and N500,000 each to their counterparts in the Power Lifting.
He also rewarded gold medalists in African Senior Wrestling championships with N1m each; silver medalists, N750,000; Bronze medalists, N500,000; coaches and officials, N1million and N250,000 each respectively. For the African Junior championship, the rewards were gold, N750,000; silver, N500,000; bronze, N250,000 each; coaches and officials, N750,000 and N250,000 each respectively.
Members of the national female Under-20 team that won silver in Canada, got N1million each, their head coach, N750,000 and officials N500,000 each.
Jonathan also rewarded each of the participants in African Team Athletic Championships in Morocco, African Youth Games in Botswana, Handball Team to Sweden as well as the Nigeria’s contingent to World Youth Games with N500,000.
The President said the athletes got different rewards because some tournaments were more important than others.
