“We’re Not Asking for Favors, Just Fairness”: Ogun Caterers protest exclusion from National Sports Festival
Lauretta Fagbohun, Abeokuta.
Dozens of aggrieved caterers, many of them widows and small-scale women entrepreneurs, staged a protest in Abeokuta on Thursday over their exclusion from food service contracts at the 2025 National Sports Festival, alleging economic marginalization and lack of transparency in the awarding of catering jobs.
Protesters carried placards reading “Caterers Are Hungry” and “Our Job Is Not for Babcock University”.
National President, Mrs. Francisca Ojo, said caterers had traveled from across the country with food supplies but were not accredited.
The group decried being sidelined in favor of private institutions, calling the act “unfair and harmful to grassroots businesses.”
The Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Oludaisi Elemide, promised to communicate their grievances to appropriate authorities.
“This is our fatherland. We’re not asking for favors; we’re asking for fairness,” Ojo emphasized, urging Governor Dapo Abiodun to intervene.
