One embarrassment too many, by Patrick Omorodion

The phrase ‘Sword of Democles’ is described as an impending doom, a situation where someone lives under the threat of a sudden, catastrophic event or danger. That is exactly what Nigeria sports is facing now. In exactly forty eight hours from today if nothing is done to clear the doubts of the Athletics Integrity Unit, AIU of World Athletics, the hammer will fall on the country’s athletics body, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN.

It would be recalled that in July this year, Nigeria hosted the 2025 African U-18 and U-20 Championships in Abeokuta where she featured 17 athletes. Months after, the AIU discovered that 16 of the 17 athletes the country featured at the event had multiple dates of birth in their records with the world body. Shocked by this development, AIU has queried the AFN, asking it to produce documents like birth certificates, international passports, school records or medical files of the affected athletes to verify their true ages.

If they are not able to do this by this Tuesday, the AIU is expected to open a formal investigation into age manipulation against Nigeria. It is a serious violation of the Integrity Code of Conduct and World Athletics Technical Rules. The AFN’s Technical Director, Gabriel Okon, who should know, is reported not to be responding to messages and calls from journalists to throw more light on the matter. The buck passing has started. A board member, Dr. Henry Okorie, who was reportedly contacted said that the federation was not aware of the query.

How could he say the AFN is not aware of the query when the National Sports Commission, NSC, has already reacted through its Director General, Hon. Bukola Olopade. Olopade was quoted as saying that “We are aware of the query from AIU of World Athletics and for us at the National Sports Commission, this does not paint the AFN in good light”. The DG must be pissed off because the Championship where the discrepancy was noticed was hosted by his home state, Ogun in Abeokuta and he actually supervised it. This is not the first time the AFN will be embarrassing the country internationally. During the last Olympic Games in Paris, the AFN bungled the registration of one of the country’s best athletes, Favour Ofili in the 100m event.

Then sports minister, John Enoh set up a panel to investigate what happened, vowing to sanction those responsible for it. The panel indicted some officials of the AFN and recommended sanctions for them. Shortly after, the sports ministry was scrapped and replaced with the National Sports Commission, NSC which however, failed to implement the report of the Mumini Alao committee which investigated the Paris Olympics embarrassment. Yours truly reminded the NSC about the report and urged it to implement the decision of the panel to forestall a repetition of the administrative blunder by the AFN.

The NSC never did anything. This left Ofili devastated and she decided to change her nationality to being a Turkish citizen. It is no surprise that the country is witnessing another administrative blunder that has again embarrassed the country before the international community. Age cheating or falsification is not new to Nigeria’s sports. From football to athletics and even basketball, the issue has always been a problem which officials treated with kid gloves because of the craze to win at all cost. It is a cankerworm that has been allowed to fester as a result of the decision of the government to throw money at juveniles participating in amateur sports. World sporting bodies introduced age grade competitions to discover young talents who would be nurtured to stardom.

A means to an end sort of. Unfortunately third world countries mostly from Africa, Asia and to some extent, South America always see it as an end in itself and therefore cut corners to win at all costs. It is a fact that most Nigerian athletes are from humble backgrounds and therefore depend on rewards from government when they win laurels to support themselves and their families. Sports federations and their technical officials are not left out of the rewards and therefore connive with athletes and their parents to falsify their ages in order to make the various national teams. It is a fact that most of our young athletes who make waves at age grade competitions, rather than progress in performance, begin to dwindle with time.

Isn’t it a surprise that Nigeria has won the FIFA U-17 World Cup a record five times yet Nigeria haven’t been able to win the U-20 version or even gone beyond the second round at the senior World Cup? It would be recalled when Mr. Tijjani Umar was president of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, he rejected sworn affidavits from athletes born after the year 2000 coming for U-15 and U-17 national teams, stressing that they must produce their birth certificates from recognized hospitals.

As if the NSC knew that this age falsification issue will come up, it recently got an approval from the National Council of Sports for a policy to formally make it a crime that would attract sanctions for anyone involved in the act in Nigeria. The DG, Hon. Olopade specifically stated that “the sanctions will apply to athletes, coaches, team officials, officiating officials, state delegations and administrators involved in any form of age fraud.” This is the time to put the policy to work. The NSC should investigate the AFN and fish out those who falsified the athletes ages that has caused the country this embarrassment which is becoming too regular. It should also ensure that henceforth it directs all federations to have a data bank which must also be deposited with it to guide against discrepancies in athletes documents in future.

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