Nigeria’s dream of winning the All Africa Games in Mozambique this year has suffered a devastating blow as the organizers have canceled Wrestling and Powerlifting for Special Sports after intensive lobby from South Africa.

Instead, they have introduce special sports swimming with an outrageous 50 gold medal for grab.

The Mozambicans have relied on South Africa in the provision of essential facilities for the Games which holds between September 3 and 18 in Maputo. The South Africans were rattled with Nigeria’s exploits in Wrestling at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India and feel that the best way to stop Nigeria is to cancel sports where Nigeria has advantage.

Director of Sports Development in the National Sports Commission, Dr Patrick Ekeji confirmed the development stating that Nigeria has complained to the AU Sports Ministers and committee of experts but noted that the cost of upturning the decision was huge.

“If we want to upturn the organisers’ coup, we have to call for the meeting of the Committee of Experts and the AU Ministers,” Ekeji said. “Hosting these meetings will cost a lot of money. But we are not losing sleep over the decision. We have fallen back on our Plan B. We will use the money instead to send some of our military personnel to shooting training overseas and we are sure that Nigerian soldiers are amongst the best marksmen in the world.

“Some disabled athletes have also taken the challenge and promised that they will win enough medals in swimming. So, what we need now is the funds to send these athletes on training immediately. The organizers have also introduced all manner of track and field sports for the special athletes but we are not bothered.”

The Director General who disclosed that Nigeria was on course for the Games however appealed to the National Assemble to hasten the release of funds for the All Africa Games so that “we are not caught in the web of sports politics of the South Africans,”

He said: “We have done all the preparations that we can do without money. We are just waiting for the next stage and we hope that our funds are releasedoin time. The fact is that we know what to do to move sports forward and also claim the top place in Africa but funding has been the bane. We have just defended our budget at the National Assemble and we hope that they will help us by releasing the funds immediately.”