By Ben Efe

Who leaked the IAAF letter threatening sanctions against Nigeria to the public? And why has the world athletics ruling body not sanctioned Nigeria two weeks after it fired a warning? These are the burning questions athletics buffs in Nigeria have been begging to get answers.

AFN President Gusau

It boiled over on Tuesday May 27, when Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN board members including Gabriel Okon, Brown Ebewle, AIG Sanni Mohammed, Rosa Collins and Olumide George met in Abuja and passed a resolution urging embattled president, Ibrahim Gusau to step aside so that allegations of financial impropriety levelled against him could be investigated.

This was in the aftermath of a mistakenly paid $150,000 grants to the AFN by the IAAF. The said sum is meant to be the monthly $15,000 grants usually doled out by the IAAF to member federations. This payment was made in 2017 shortly after the federation board was dissolved.

Two months after when the IAAF discovered its accounting error, the AFN was notified, but by this time the money had already been moved from the AFN account by the Sports Ministry officials. And when the issue became public knowledge, officials scrambled to cover their tracks.

Shockingly, two weeks to the dissolution of the Federal Executive Council by President Muhammadu Buhari, a letter surfaced, which sparked outrage. It was signed by Jee Isram, IAAF senior manager governance, members and international relations and addressed to the AFN.

A paragraph mentioned that the outgoing Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung failed to keep his promise of paying the money and now that he is leaving in two weeks he must act or Nigeria will be sanctioned.

Stung by this development, Dalung summoned a meet of the AFN board on Thursday, May 23.

There he disclosed how N39m was handed to Gusau, by former secretary of the AFN Amaechi Akawo and it was further disclosed that the money was used to purchase equipment for Nigerian athletes at the 2018 African Senior Championships in Asaba.

Quite a number of athletics enthusiasts meanwhile, wondered why the IAAF, that had the means of recovering its money by suspending grants to Nigeria and withholding of Nigerian athletes’ winnings could write a threatening letter to the AFN. And furthermore, who posted the letter on social media?

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While this was on, an IAAF memo was published on the social media claiming that the said $150,000 was meant for the Warri Grand Prix, but it was quickly dismissed because it is on record that the IAAF did not sanction the Warri meet.

“So how come IAAF approved money for a meet it did not sanction? Something in this whole saga isn’t just right,” said a former athlete.

A few days later Gusau was urged by the sports minister to call an emergency meeting of the AFN, which he failed to do and it fell on the vice-president Olumide George to summon the meeting and Gusau was then suspended pending investigations on how the money went down. There were also other charges of failing to call board meetings and taking unilateral decisions without executive board approval.

However, on Friday, May 30, a counter letter by five other members emerged. It insisted that Gusau remains the president of the AFN. On that same day, the AFN received a letter from Mr. Isram of the IAAF, urging the AFN interim committee not to send any correspondent to the IAAF hierarchy on the matter. Rather all correspondence should be addressed to him.

“It is very easy to conclude that Mr. Isram is acting with a group of people to undermine Nigerian athletics,” said an official of the AFN.

“Our suspicion is that he is trying to block our efforts to stamp out corruption in the AFN.

“We are surely going on with our investigations and expect Gusau to cooperate with the panel that has been set up”.

Meanwhile, Gusau has denied any wrongdoing, stating that he never handled any money. He didn’t indicate if it was going to appear before the panel of investigation. As it appears,  he has been emboldened by the support of other members including former AFN president Solomon Ogba and former secretary-general Maria Wophil.

Speaking on the development, former 400m runner and board member, Gadzama Wadzani Tafida urged the “acting president” to push on with the task of bringing sanity to the Federation in which before the ouster of Gusau, board meetings have never been held. Gusau and his right-hand man Sunday Adeleye took decisions on their own.

“The Interim AFN president Hon. Olamide George should do the right thing. Our aim and objective are to bring people to order.

“Former AFN president Hon. Ibrahim Shehu Gusau took bullets on behalf of the real culprits who are quiet at the moment. As a leader, you are liable if those you delegated power to misbehave.”

VANGUARD