A former minister of sports,
Solomon Dalung, has tackled his successor, Sunday Dare, over his comments on
the allegedly diverted bonuses and allowances of Nigeria women’s basketball
team, D’Tigress.
Dalung said the N1 billion had
been approved by the President, Muhammadu Buhari, and
released since August 2019 for the basketballers’ bonuses.
The former minister was reacting
to a comment made by Sunday Dare that he was not the minister when the bonuses
were owed.
In a video uploaded on the official Facebook page of the Federal Ministry of Youth & Sports Development, Nigeria, the minister had said, “These are allowances that are owed since 2017 when I was not even the minister.”
The minister also clarified that
the fund was not diverted.
Recall that members of D’Tigress had expressed their anger in a viral video, claiming that
they are being owed allowances and bonuses.
The women’s basketballers also
threatened to boycott future call-ups to represent Nigeria for the 2022 World
Cup qualification series if all outstanding allowances are not paid.
In the video clip, Ify Ibekwe,
one of the prominent figures in the D’Tigress, listed the figures owed and also
included the $100,000 donation which was given to the team by three Nigerian
banks in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Dalung, who was sports minister
between 2016 and May 2019, asked Dare to come out clean and stop blaming him.
In an interview on Arise TV on
Friday, Dalung said, “In 2017, there were no issues. Because when they won, I
was given three days notice, and I immediately reached out to the presidency
and got them to meet with the federal executive councils,” Dalung said.
“The president appreciated them,
and the handshake was with N1 million each for the players and N500,000 for the
coaching crew. Immediately after the FEC meeting, they provided their account
details to the ministry in less than 24 hours and this money were disbursed to
them. So no issue in 2017.
“The issues we are talking about
are as a result of their participation at the 2018 FIBA World Cup. We had
budgetary issues with their qualification because there was a provision made in
the budget, which was presented to the national assembly and returned far below
what we expected. Which we now have to fall back on intervention, and I
approached the president, and he said, ‘put up your memo for me to consider.’
“And the federation presented a
memo of about N1.5 billion covering their preparation and participation in the
2018 World Cup. This memo was not even presented to the ministry on time, so we
were caught up with a way to spend. Then the president of the federation said
we could be able to raise funds to sustain the competition, and we could
address the issues later.
“The girls went to the
competition and made the country proud. So when we came back, I approached the
president and he approved N1 billion, covering the cost. I kept pursuing it,
and the funds were not released until when I left office. The funds were
released in August 2019. N1 billion approved by the president came out in
August 2019. And I wasn’t the minister then. So passing the buck of the blame
to me is not the best way. The best way is for the ministry to come out clean
and apologise.”
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