Hon. Ahmed Shuaib Gara-Gombe, sports entrepreneur and chairman of Gombe State Athletics Association, has called on President Bola Tinubu to sack Sports Minister, Sen. John Enoh, following the exclusion of top athlete, Favour Ofili, from the 100m event at the ongoing Paris Olympic Games, describing it as national embarrassment.
Gombe, in press statement, made available to Blueprint Sport suggested Mr. President should impose a serious sanctions on the Sports Minister, President, Nigeria Olympic Committee Habu Gumel (NOC) and Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) president, Tonobok Okowa, as deterrent for future abuse.
According to Gombe, “Favour Ofili not listed for the 100m event at Olympics is most unfortunate and serious embarrassment to our nation, also an embarrassment to Mr. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and to all sports stakeholders.”
He stated that he was aware of the initial reactions from the Minister of Sports and also have read statement and reactions on his X handle, insisting that he did not expect such statements from a Minister.
“The Negligence, Inefficiency, the Corruption that has eaten deeply into Nigerian Sports are the root cause of this.
“The sports Minister unfortunately, has promoted corruption in the sports sector that’s why we find ourselves in this mess in AFN.
“Since the Minister took office, he has refused to listen to those who would tell him the truth and the true situations in Nigeria Sports,” he said.
Gombe wondered why the Sports Minister is pushing the blame to AFN, NOC. “Yes! these Federations should take the blame, but as the number one sports administrator in the country, he should take all the blame. I put the blame entirely on the door steps of the Minister.
“He cannot claim ignorance of the rot in Athletics Federation. In fact, the Ofili case is just an insignificant fraction of the rot, corruption and inefficiency that is going on in the Athletics Federation.”
Consequently, in a saner clime, by now, “The Minister Sen. John Enoh, NOC President, Habu Gumel and of course, AFN president Tonobok Okowa should have resigned but because they have no shame, under normal circumstances, they should have resigned immediately they were allegedly found gullible.”
