Adedeji Olalekan, one of the winners of the 2021 edition of The Next Titan, a Nigerian entrepreneurial reality show, has lamented the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development’s refusal to disburse prize monies promised to winners.

According to the contestant, the organisers of the show held the edition in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development. The winners were expected to benefit from a N12.5billion National Youth Investment Fund launched by the Federal Government in 2020.

Olalekan, who owns a photography business, told FIJ that since he and other winners were announced in January, they were yet to receive the promised investment fund.

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“Last year, The Next Titan put out applications for people to apply that there was a grant from the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development for entrepreneurs,” he said.

“Those who operated a registered business would be given N3million while those who were yet to register their business would be given N250,000. We did the audition in October 2021.”

“Then in January, I got a call that I had been selected and that I should submit my company’s details, which I did.

“Again around early February, they called me that I should go and open a Heritage Bank account. Since I opened the account, I have not heard anything.”

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Olalekan would later find out that other winners were yet to receive their prize monies as well.

“Then sometime in April, the winners started meeting to discuss the next plan of action to claim their entitlements,” Olalekan said.

“We reached out to The Next Titan, because they were the people who rolled out the application, and they said they had handed it all to the Ministry.

“Then what followed was that we started hearing some speculations that the game plan was to delay the payment till everybody forgets and they would not pay the money.”

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While reacting to the accusation, Toyin Ibitoye, the Special Assistant on Multimedia to the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, said in an interview with The PUNCH in April that the funds would be disbursed soon.

Speaking with FIJ, Winnie Uloghobui, Product Manager at The Next Titan Nigeria, said all the winners of the company’s reality show usually get their money.

She also said the winners of season 8 had been contacted on the next step by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.

When FIJ contacted Olatunji John, the contact person for the ministry, for comments on why winners had not been paid, he said, “I can not answer that question.”