The richest African in the World, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has beeen called out by his fellow countrymen after a millionaire Japanese doctor donated $390,000 to the Nigerian national team for winning bronze in the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympics.
The bronze medals represent the highest achievement of Nigerian sportsmen at this edition of the Olympics and many pundits and Nigerians across the world are blaming it on the ineptitude of the Nigerian government.
Soccer (football) is the biggest sport in many African countries, and Nigeria is no exception. It’s Super Eagles team which won the 1994 Olympics in Atlanta was so poorly funded and so disorganized that an American airline had to bail the players out as they became stranded in Atlanta when government officials refused to pay for their charter to Rio.
A senior cabinet official in the President Muhammad Buhari administration, Comrade Solomon Dalung, made a famous gaffe stating, ‘the welfare of the players was inconsequential as they were not doing the United States of Nigeria a favour by traveling abroad’.
The blunder made 48 hours to the Olympics opening ceremony quickly went viral on social media, drawing the ire of Nigerians and causing Dalung to block his Twitter handle.
All this hoopla coupled with Nigeria’s winning 5-4 performance against the Japanese national team gained the favour of a Japanese plastic surgeon and millionaire, Katsuya Takasu, who today has redeemed his pledge and presented $390,000 to
Nigerian athletes.
Some Nigerians took to the world’s most popular social media site, Facebook, to call out Africa’s biggest industrialist, Aliko Dangote over the donation.
Ebuka Paulson said, “This man is not even richer than dangote, but he is willing to give out, to support young talents.
We have richest man in Africa and others yet our sports suffers because of lack of fund. Our athletes are poorly fed,
and attained to. Tomorrow now he will say he want to buy arsenal. Why not start from home before out side.”
Chinwe Tony replied “Blame the government bro, Dangote is not the minister of sports. Am no fan of Dangote, but I think he have no hand in this mess.”
Chibuike Pat Ezeabasili angrily responded, “Why must you blame dangote? Do you know the amount of arms he gives daily? … number of people on his payroll? .. I hate this kind of talk, dangote won’t kill himself for Nigerians.
It’s obligation of the government at the top to see that we participated adequately and funded.”
Stenlli Makiastenlli Chibyk disagreed, stating, in a post laden with misspellings and grammatical errors, “if Dangote have money, he would have cover up players without them been exposed by the media,
how much was hotel that he cant pay ? how much was flight that he cant take care of from US to Brazil, how much is feeding that he cant give to atlete and food is cheap even he will get his money back from govt than letting a young player like mikel to cater for hotel expenses and feeding ,supposing he wasnt there ? menhh,
Dangote doesnt have money at all,..”
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