A chieftain of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Olufemi Ajadi Oguntoyinbo has described the over N12bn spent at the 2024 Paris Olympics competition as a ‘wastage’.

He decried the failure of Nigeria’s contingent at the just concluded games and their failure to clinch any medals despite the huge financial commitment by the government.

DAILY POST gathered that Nigeria fielded 88 athletes in 12 sports in Paris and ended up without a medal.

The NNPP chieftain in his reaction, said the amount that was invested is painful because there were no results to show for it.

He added that it is almost two times the amount of the country’s entire budget for the Ministry of Science and Technology this year.

Oguntoyinbo in a statement made available to DAILY POST on Thursday, then called on the Federal government to probe the cause of this wastage and failure.

He urged the Federal government to focus more on Science and Technology development as they are doing on sports.

The NNPP chieftain said, “We fielded 88 athletes in 12 sports with 12bn in Paris and ended up without a medal, this is over N136 million (about $85,000) spent on each of the 88 Nigerian contingents to the Olympics, and no singular medal was won.

“While Jamaica, a nation which spent far less than we did, a total of about $2300 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.

“Now that the Paris Olympics 2024 has officially ended and Team Nigeria, despite the huge financial investment made into the project, returned without a single medal amounts to wastage.

“Let me call on the Federal Government to institute a probe into the performance of our 88 contingent to the Olympics. I want to register my displeasure with the recklessness and shoddy preparation for the Olympics leading to a wastage of over N12bn. Wasting this amount under our present state of the economy is something we cannot sweep under the carpet”.

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