Rivers State athletes are yet to travel for the National Youth Games in Ilorin.
The National Youth games commenced with athletes arrival at the games village on Friday but athletes from Rivers State are still in Port Harcourt due to lack of funds.
Following months of intense training looking in vain, the children took to the government house on Friday evening carrying placards to express their grievances.
After some minutes at the gates of government house, the children were joined by the State Governor, Nyesom Wike who revealed to them funds for their trip had already been approved.
In a chat with aclsports.com, assistant captain of the badminton team, Ibaraboka Bertha was unhappy with the situation.
“We have trained for several months , we went to Benin for the qualifiers and we won. For four days we have been in camp hoping to travel on Thursday, no food, mosquitoes here and there and our event starts on Sunday.”
“We need to represent our state but we are still here. I come to training daily from a far distance and yet no fund released for the games. We won’t be happy if we miss the Youth Games,”he said.
The Rivers contingent were supposed to have left Port Harcourt on Thursday, it is still not certain when they’ll leave for the games as accreditation of athletes is already ongoing at the multi purpose hall, University of Ilorin, Kwara state.
