21st National Sports Festival Medal Padding: Delta state still undisputed champions!
FMYSD admits human errors led to medal padding
Delta state is still the undisputed winner of the 21st National Sports Festival held in Asaba, capital of Delta state after review of the Medal Table by an independent committee set up by the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.
The committee submitted that human errors occasioned by administrative laxity, inexperience, general delays, non-awareness and some in cases, the misapplication of the substantive Festival Rules led to the flaws observed in the earlier computed Medal Table, which has now been rectified and approved by the Ministry.
According to the Permanent Secretary of the FMYSD, Ismaila Abubakar, in a press statement , the committee was able to reveal, through the full application of the rules, that the results from some events in Athletics, Scrabble, Weightlifting and Wresting, which did not meet the criteria for scoring were not recorded on the reviewed Medals Table, while in accordance with Rule 28 of the World Para Powerlifting Rules and Regulations (March 2022), only the results from ‘Best Lift Medal’ were recorded for the sport of Powerlifting.
”Consequently, it is significant to note that most of the States retained their positions on the Medal Table thereby maintaining the status quo.
However, some States lost some Medals as the Committee applied all extant Rules guiding the organisation of the National Sports Festival as applicable in Games of this magnitude,’ said Abubakar in the Press statement.
In the reviewed Medal Table, Delta State maintained its lead with a total of 280 Gold, 168 Silver and 120 Bronze medals followed by Bayelsa, Edo and Oyo States, which pooled 106 Gold, 69 Gold and 43 Gold medals respectively.
To avert a re-occurrence, the Sports Ministry says it would take appropriate administrative procedures to prevent future reoccurrence as recommended by the Committee.
The summary of the Medals Table is presented below:
STATES G S B TOTAL
Delta 280 168 120 568
Bayelsa 106 100 83 289
Edo 69 77 134 280
Oyo 43 42 53 138
Lagos 40 56 73 169
Rivers 35 44 96 175
Kano 20 26 31 77
A/Ibom 14 14 32 60
FCT 13 12 28 53
Ogun 12 15 35 62
Imo 11 7 24 42
Abia 7 11 18 36
Ondo 6 17 32 55
Anambra 6 9 24 39
C/River 6 6 5 17
Kwara 4 8 38 50
Kaduna 4 6 7 17
Osun 3 11 13 27
Plateau 3 8 26 37
Katsina 2 4 8 14
Benue 2 2 3 7
Niger 1 3 6 10
Taraba 1 3 6 10
Gombe 1 3 5 9
Yobe 1 3 3 7
Enugu 1 1 7 9
Kogi 1 1 3 5
Borno 1 0 7 8
Adamawa 1 0 3 4
Nasarawa 0 6 13 19
Bauchi 0 6 9 15
Ebonyi 0 4 5 9
Ekiti 0 4 3 7
Kebbi 0 3 6 9
Jigawa 0 2 3 5
Sokoto 0 1 0 1
Zamfara 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 694 683 962 2339
