Athletics Federation of Nigeria officials have urged President Goodluck Jonathan, to shower ‘naira rain’ on its entourage that won the African Athletics Championships last July in Porto Novo, Benin Republic.

Nigerian athletes had won the championships against rising odds and according to the AFN president, Solomon Ogba, it was disheartening that the government did not deem it fit to honor these athletes, whereas other sports men and women who equally achieved success were generously rewarded by the President in Abuja.

“Our athletes who did the nation proud at the Africa Championships have not been rewarded. We can easily pass the championships for the Africa Nations Cup and interestingly we were winning it for the first time since 1998. If others could be appreciated, why not our athletes? For this will go along way to motivate them to do more,” said Ogba.

He reiterated that Nigerian athletes did their best at the London 2012 Olympics where they failed to pick a medal, a sad turn which also occurred at the Seoul 1988 Olympics.

“Our target was to have athletes in the finals of their events and this we achieved. You did not expect our men running 10.1 to go and beat Usain Bolt.

There was a whole lot of problems that we had to face and people outside of the system will never know all these things.

For instance, the allowances of the athletes during the Surrey Camp in London were not paid. And the athletes threatened to boycott the relays. We did our best to keep the athletes going and if we don’t have support of the government, there is little we can achieve,” added Ogba.