The Imo State Commissioner for Sports, Dan Ogu has been fingered with messing with funds meant for Heartland Football, Owerri.
There is strong accusation that he has been responsible for some of the challenges bedeviling in terms of running the club.
Soccer fans in the state including some stakeholders have been pointing accusing fingers on the Commissioner who they allege have been interfering with the running of the club
Thursday morning funds meant for the club rather than extend it to the general manager Chukwudi Fortune, for his disbursement was hijacked by the Commissioner who distributed same to the end users. Our reporter gathered that this angered the general manager who expressed his displeasure over the issue.
The GM in the heat of the broil demanded, “Give us our money so I can disburse, your duty is to provide us the funds, and you cannot disburse money for me”
When they stormed out of the Deputy Speaker’s house where he distributed the sums both continued in a shouting match of abuse with the Commissioner mocking the GM for poor performance while the GM hit back that “it is this your attitude of pinching the money that is responsible for the poor outing”
We gathered that it took the intervention of the Deputy Speaker, Hon Amara Iwuanyanwu to pull the Chukwudi aside to calm frayed nerves.
When contacted the commissioner denied it all querying “how did it happen, ask them, all these are lies. When people want to do things the wrong way they will do everything to justify it?”
On the disbursement of money he stated that “the deputy speaker collected the funds and we came to his house to disburse it, what is wrong about it”, he queried.
In a Press briefing Monday, ex-Nationale players while addressing sports writers in the state disclosed that the reason the club is not doing well is that it is run by politicians who are more inclined to their personal interest than the Club’s. They pointed to the direction of the Commissioner.
In a related development, the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) has also expressed displeasure over the manner the Commissioner has withheld supposed benefits that should accrue to them promising to release a communiqué on the state of sports in Imo.
Meanwhile, it was gathered that the Heartland players were not fed lunch Wednesday but for the intervention of the GM who made out 2k to each player to feed shortly before the game against Enyimba.
