Secretary General of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Amechi Akawo has been fingered as having aborted the plans of three of the nation’s youth who were supposed to make Nigeria proud at the World U-20 athletics championships in Finland.
Bambo Akani who made the disclosure on Channels Television programme, monitored from Abuja said, “It is very disappointing moreso we have missed out as a nation in the last two editions of the championship. The other time, the athletes camped and trained in Port Harcourt.
The athletes couldn’t get transit visa to Colombia. It was the same story with the Commonwealth Youth Games.
Akani said: “I can authoritatively say that those passports were not submitted for visa applications.
I’m privy to this because I was involved in the application process.
Last year, there was no money to send the team out.
This year, we came more prepared. “The IAAF has a quota for three athletes.So, Nigeria was not paying anything for those three athletes.
Quite frankly, the AFN secretary got the passports three weeks before. After a week, he keeps saying they are waiting for the IAAF to send the letter and other documents. “We said to ourselves, so we reached out directly to the IAAF who said they deal only with the Federations.
They confirmed no one from the Nigerian federation asked for any such document.
They repeatedly asked member nations to make their request on time.
“By the time we made the request through the President, Ibrahim Shehu-Gusau, he was very helpful.
He personally emailed the IAAF to get the letter. He got an immediate response.
But it was too late.” “It is shocking to being misled that something is happening whereas nothing is happening.
It is killing the future of these athletes. This keeps happening.
Somebody must be held responsible for this.
We have to put a stop to this. “It’s about gross negligence or a wilful attempt to ensure that the athletes never travelled for the event.
It’s not about money. Over 23 years, we find it out that we don’t get visas.
We deserve explanation. “How do you explain that the winner of the 100m in Finland won with 10.19s?,” he questioned.
Arinze Benjamin jumped 7.91m at the Grand Prix.
Joy Gabriel-Udo had returned 11.42s being the Nigerian and West African champion and Enock Adegoke who ran 10.19s at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.
The three were to have represented Nigeria in Finland.
