The 3 gold medallists from the state are Roland Ezurike, Ndidi Nwosu and Josephine Orji. Ezurike won the first gold medal for Nigeria at the Rio Paralympics. He won gold medals at men’s power-lifting in the 54kg and 200kg categories.
Nwosu won Nigeria’s 5th gold medal at the Rio 2016 Paralympics, beating the defending champion to win the women’s -73kg Powerlifting event.
On her part, Orji shattered the world record of the women’s -+86kg power-lifting event at the Paralympics Games with a lift of 154kg to win the gold medal.
Sports journalist, Rachel Ugiagbe who tweets via @RachelUgiagbe shared pictures from the ceremony where the governor announced the rewards.
According to Ugiagbe, the Imo state governor announced that the coaches of the athletes are to equally receive N1m cash gifts and a car each.
The Paralympians are Roland Ezurike, Ndidi Nwosu and Precious Josephine Orji. And he also gave their coaches same gifts.— 411 Sports Lady ® (@RachyUgiagbe) September 22, 2016
Beyond the commendable gesture of rewarding the Paralympics gold medallists, Governor Okorocha has been criticised by many civil servants for failing to pay salaries. He has blamed the failure of the state government to pay the salaries on inadequate funds owing to dwindling revenue from the federal government.
While it remains to be seen if the promises made to the athletes will be fulfilled, it is worthy to note that the governor made a similar donation of a piece of land and a car to Lovelyn Obiji who won a gold medal at the 2012 Paralympics Games in London.
Nice one, I like that gesture
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