By Ben Efe

Former national coach, Toni Urhobo has called on the newly elected board members of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria to prove to Nigerians they merited their positions, by producing results for the nation.

Coach Urhobo who was also president of the AFN in 1997 argued that for so many years; Nigerians have had nothing to celebrate in athletics, most especially in the last two editions of the Olympic Games in London 2012 and Rio 2016.

“The new board led by Ibrahim Gusau need to work on producing results to justify their election.

“Athletics is all about results. For the past eight years we haven’t got good performances from our athletes at the world level, and we expect the new board to hit the ground running and begin to do things that will give us results.

“It is one thing to aspire to become president and it is another thing to give the kind of leadership that athletics requires to be productive again, Let us see what the new board will do, in fact they have to prove to Nigerians that they are equal to the task, otherwise all the hustling they did to get there will amount to nothing,” Urhobo stated.

He added that so much time had been lost with regards to preparations for the new season as a results of the campaign for the elections. “It is left to be seen how our athletes can make up ahead of the world championships in August.

“We were supposed to have conducted the elections immediately after the Olympics. But we allowed events to roll over into the new year. We hope that the guys on the board will work with other experienced coaches to get good results in the future.”

The new board is expected to be sworn in this week. However, there is a cloud of uncertainty as prospective candidates who were disqualified from contesting by the Sports ministry are considering taking legal action to block the new board from assuming office.