Kwara special athletes protest 15 months unpaid allowances

The Kwara State special athletes on Wednesday blocked the entrance of the State Stadium Complex, Ilorin to protest their unpaid 15 months allowances.
The News Agency of Nigeria learnt that the athletes are paid N8,000 monthly by the government under the suspended Kwara Bridge Empowerment Scheme.
The athletes carried placards some of which bear inscriptions like “Stop Cheating Us” and “Pay Us Our 15 months Stipends”.
Others read: “Pharmacist Ayo Kale (Commissioner), You Know Nothing About Sports Development, Go Back to Your Chemist”.
The spokesman for the athletes, Oyadirin Felix, said they were Kwara State ambassadors who had been representing the state for the past 20 years without employment.
Felix alleged that the state government also stopped the N8,000 stipend going to some of the athletes under the Kwara Bridge Empowerment Scheme for the past 15 months.
He said in their bid to resolve the issue amicably, they had met with the state Chief of Staff, the Commissioner and the Director of Sports without any positive result.
Felix stated: “The commissioner is our problem because since he assumed office, we have made several attempts to dialogue and chat a way forward but he has always turned down our request.
“To our surprise, they paid people on Tuesday without paying us. They are playing with our intelligence; we also have children and family to take care of too.
“We want to be responsible to our family; we want to do Sallah too.
“Other staff have been paid leaving us out that is why we have blocked the stadium entrance today so that outsiders will know what we are going through.”
Felix said when Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed met with them, he promised to pay the remaining 50 per cent allowances for National Sports Festival in 2012 (Eko 2012) participation but this has not been done.
He said the governor promised to employ some of them into the mainstream civil service but no one had been employed yet.
He further stated: “From 2006, we have won 90 percent of the medals for the state. The only medal the state won in 2012 was by a special athlete in table tennis.
“We love our state and we want to continue to represent it even when other states are paying our colleagues N60,000 to N100,000 monthly.”
Felix said only six of them out of more than 30 were being paid the N8,000 monthly stipend.
Reacting, the Commissioner for Sports, Kale Ayo, said the state government’s decision to suspend the KWABES programme affected some of the athletes.
Ayo said he was not aware of the 50 per cent allowances for Eko 2012 owed as claimed by the athletes.
He confirmed that N96,000 was paid to six of the athletes on Wednesday.
The Commissioner said since the government reduced the state’s Sports Council’s subvention, some of the athletes could not be catered for again.
He declined to comment on how much the sports council was collecting before and what it was receiving now as subvention, saying it was official.
NAN reports that officers of Nigeria Police denied people access into the stadium while the protest was going on.