By Ononye VC
The Labour Party Presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election Peter Obi has bemoaned Nigeria’s failure to win a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics despite spending about N12 billion on the competition.
He asked the Federal Government to investigate the country’s outing at the games and “make sure that those responsible do not have the opportunity to do so again”.
Obi said in his X handle said the country’s “huge investment, without getting any returns” must be questioned. He said: “We invested about N12 billion into this Olympics, which is almost twice the amount budgeted for the entire Ministry of Science and Technology for this year’s budget.
“This is over N136 million (about $85,000) spent on each of the 88 Nigerian contingents to the Olympics, and no single medal was won while Jamaica, a nation which spent far less than we did, a total of about $2,300 on each contingent, won 6 medals; 1 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze at the Olympics.
“We must now question how we made this huge investment, without getting any returns.” Obi added: “How can one explain that a country like Jamaica spent less than 5 per cent of what we spent on our contingents for the Paris Olympics 2024 and won as many as six medals?
“At least nine African countries won gold, but the giant, with over 200 million people, came home without even a bronze.”
According to him, the rascality and recklessness that has continued to characterise leadership in Nigeria has often portrays the country as a joke, even on the international stage.
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