President Goodluck Jonathan has rewarded African Queen of the track, Blessing Okagbare with the sum of N3 million for her heroic performance at the recently concluded 2013 IAAF World Athletics Championship in Moscow.Okagbare won silver medal in the long jump with a leap of 6.99 metres and also finished third in the Women’s 200m race to put Nigeria on the medal table.
The IAAF diamond league 100m champion came sixth in the 100m final, with a time of 11.04 secs at the Moscow championship.
President Jonathan also made a cash reward of N3.5 million for Okagbare’s coach, Daniel Esebinimo for his contribution and effort to her success at the world athletics showpiece.
The president who made the presentation yesterday at the Federal Executive Council Meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where he was presented with the medals won by Blessing Okagbare at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, charged the Federal Ministries of Sports and Finance to give adequate support to sporting activities, to enable the country achieve outstanding performance at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“Nigeria has been known as a sporting nation, but for sometime now, we have receded, but we are lucky that we are building up again.“I believe that with a young lady like Blessing Okagbare, Nigeria will get back to where it belongs and even go further. We have taken a decision that in the next Olympics, we must get medals, gold medals.
“The immediate-past Olympics that we could not get any medal, except at the Paralympics that we are able to shine, was a bad story.“I have challenged the Minister of Sports and of course, the Finance Ministry to do all what they can to make sure that we support that sector so that our young men and women will do our country proud,’’ he said.
Earlier the minister of Sports and chairman National Sports Commission (NSC), Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, attributed the recent success in sports sector to President Jonathan’s outstanding leadership and commitment to sports development.
He said in athletics, football and weightlifting, Nigeria has become the number one nation in Africa. “Never in the history of African athletics has a nation been a winner of the Senior, Junior and Youth Championships at the same time.
“Nigeria has won the whole three in the last two years; first, we won the Senior Athletics Championships in Port-Novo.
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