Federation of Nigeria, AFN president, Solomon Ogba has declared that the soon to be vacant post of Secretary-General of the federation will be filled only by a competent and internationally recognized individual.

This is coming at the heels of directives by the Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi that all sporting federations’ secretaries under the payroll of the civil service must return to their areas of primary assignment. Their places will be taken over by Nigerians whom the concerned Federations deem qualified for the job.

It was learnt that the incumbent, Maria Wophil, has been ruled out of the job even as she has shown interest to continue, due to her affiliation with the world athletics ruling body IAAF as a committee member.

However, Ogba stated that the job will be opened to every Nigerian to apply.

“But we don’t want a unanimous secretary. We want someone who, when mentioned at the CAA and IAAF level, his or her name will ring a bell. That person also should be able to meet up with our aspiration in the new AFN we want to build,”he stated.

He added that the Federation for now has rested the issue of employing a head coach since there was no fund to back up such venture.

“We cannot afford to get a head coach. We don’t have money, what we are hoping to get is a performance director, which the federation has agreed to pay the bills,”he stressed.