TheCable

Sunday Dare, the minister of youth and sports development, has congratulated Team Nigeria for recording the “country’s best performance ever” at the 2022 Commonwealth Games (CWG).

Nigeria won 12 gold, 9 silver, and 14 bronze — totaling 35 medals. The wins represented the highest at a single Commonwealth Games for the country’s contingent.

The Nigerian team also finished as the best-ranked African country on the medals table, placing 7th.

Dare described Team Nigeria’s performance as “excellent, inspirational, phenomenal, commendable and commanding”.

“This is a performance like no other as many new records were set and old records broken, while long-standing jinx of not getting on the podium in some sports was destroyed,” he said.

“This signposts a brighter and better future for Nigerian sports development.”

The minister assured the Nigerian team of a presidential reception at a date to be announced soon.

Dare added that their performance was appreciated by the entire Nigerians.

Wale Tinubu, the group chief executive of Oando Plc, also announced that his company would give cash rewards to all the Team Nigeria medalists at the games.

“Oando will match whatever cash reward is already in place for the athletes by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development,” Tinubu said on Monday

This implies that gold medal winners will get another $5,000 each; silver medal $3,000, and bronze medal $2,000 from the oil company.