The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN, have assured Nigerians that the country will qualify for the five relay events at the Tokyo Olympics.
The pledge was made after the Polish Embassy refused to issue entry visa to Nigeria’s contingent to the World Relays starting on Saturday in Silesia, Poland.
To snuff out any form of existing worries, a number of athletics meetings have been secured in the United States of America, while a five-nation relay meeting has also been lined up to hold in Nigeria before the window for qualification closes on June 29, 2021.
To this end, only the top 16 relay teams/times will take part in the Olympics.
The Ministry also assured that it was properly guided in the discharge of its duties and Team Nigeria is not in any jeopardy.
According to reports, both the Sports Ministry and the AFN had anticipated that the disgraced former president of the AFN,Mr. Shehu Ibrahim Gusau would block the registration of Nigerian athletes for the event.
It is believed that the former AFN boss had illegally held on to the official password of the federation and moved to organize a few meetings in the USA to forestall the team’s chances to qualify for the Olympics.
However, the federation led by acting president, Olamide George could only register the team with the help of the two-man Confederation of African Athletics team that came to Abuja last week to quail the brewing conflict within the AFN.
“We did not get to officially register the team until Thursday last week and apply for entry visas at the Polish Embassy. Upon our application, the Polish Embassy insisted it would take two weeks to process the visa applications and all entreaties for a quick consideration were ignored,” said Niyi Beyioku, the AFN Secretary-General.
“The Sports Minister, Sunday Dare had to involve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure we get the team visas to Poland but the embassy stood its ground and we, after consultations with the Sports Ministry decided to switch to our second plan which was to convert a pre-arranged training tour to include qualification for the five relay events. The AFN wants to assure Nigerians that our relay teams will be in Tokyo come this July,” said Beyioku.
“The World Relay does not close the qualification window for the Tokyo Olympics. We have other events that we have mentioned and also the African Athletics Championships holding in June in Algiers, Algeria. So, we have quite a number of opportunities to achieve our aim of getting Nigerian relay teams to the Olympics,’ Beyioku added and berated Mr Gusau for putting personal interest above the interest of over 200m Nigerians who are eagerly looking forward to the relay teams to win more medals for Nigeria like they have been doing since 1984 when the men’s 4x400m won the first medal in track and field for Nigeria.
