Tokyo Olympics: Reps summon minister over contingents’ failed doping test


The House of Representatives has resolved to invite the Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Sunday Dare, to brief its Committee on Sports on developments that led some of Nigerian athletes’ disqualification over noncompliance with doping test rules.

The committee is expected to ruffle the level of Nigeria’s compliance with extant regulations set by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the independent anti-doping arm, Athletics Integrity Unit.

It will also determine the immediate and remote causes of the failed tests.

This was as the House urged the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development to put necessary measures in place
to ensure compliance with extant regulations at both local and international competitions.

The resolution came following the adoption of a motion on the “Need to Investigate Activities of the Federal Ministry of Sports and Youth Development on Failed Doping Test by Nigeria Athletes at the Olympic Games in Tokyo”, sponsored by Hon. Lawrence Babatunde Ayeni, and presented during plenary Wednesday.

The lawmaker lamented that the Nigerian delegation to the Games fared well in terms of performance, thereby raising the country’s rating internationally, but that the incident of 20 July 2021, where the Athletics Integrity Unit of the IAAF barred 10 Nigerian athletes, including the highly-rated Blessing Okagbare, from the Tokyo Olympics for failing to meet requirements for out-of-competition drug testing called for questioning.