- President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Ibrahim Gusau, in this interview with ’TANA AIYEJINA speaks on the crisis rocking the federation, his alleged suspension and the role of the sports ministry in the battle that has torn the AFN into two factions
President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Ibrahim Gusau, in this interview with ’TANA AIYEJINA speaks on the crisis rocking the federation, his alleged suspension and the role of the sports ministry in the battle that has torn the AFN into two factions
The crisis in the AFN has now split the federation into two factions. What actually caused this rift amongst members of the board?
When the issue of the missing IAAF $130,000 was on, I was the one that personally reported myself to the EFCC and the ICPC. They sent people to ask me why I reported myself and I said, ‘how can I not report it?’ First, they said it was Chief Solomon Ogba that took the money, I said, ‘no.’ Next, they said I took the money and I also said, ‘no.’ I reported myself and said in the course of investigating me, the truth would come out about who took the money. And of course, we all know the truth. They (sports ministry) took that money when there was no board, because they had a secretary and a treasurer who are their staff.
They dissolved Ogba’s board and in between his board and mine, they did the withdrawal; we have the documents to prove all that. So, they were angry with that. I am waiting for wherever they will take me to; I don’t have anything to hide. This same boy (Sunday Adeleye) they were telling me to sack has not done anything that warrants sack. He was not even in Doha (IAAF World Championships) when that issue came up, they said I should sack him and I said I don’t have such powers, that we would do it at the board. They got angry and sent a letter that he (Adeleye) had been sacked, which they don’t have the power to do. I wanted to take that issue to the board and the congress, which we held yesterday (Wednesday) but they went ahead and held a kangaroo meeting. In the constitution, only the president can call for a meeting and I have called for this meeting that held yesterday (Wednesday) about six months ago. They removed a secretary about three weeks ago without even consulting me. He is their staff, he is the one that wrote the letter, I directed him to write the letter, inviting people for the congress, which is the normal procedure and he did that. So, where did I go wrong?
What’s your reaction to the corruption allegations against you and the deal you signed with PUMA?
Now I hear they are accusing me of corruption, that who told me to get a sponsor. I got a sponsor that will save Nigeria $2.75m worth of kits and they are asking me why I did that, when I went to help Nigeria and my own team. The procedure before now was that if we have an event to attend, we go to sit in the sports ministry for over four to five hours, begging them to release money for us to buy kits. So, we sit down, we beg for money and if we were looking for N10m, we would be lucky to get N3m. And then, because of this lack of independence, we couldn’t go to any corporate organisation.
They told us point blank that they won’t give us money because we are government and the same government that should give us N10m ends up giving us N3m. What can we do with the N3m? By the time Ogba left, he had over N100m unpaid bills, this is the situation and we have done our resolution at the end of the congress. The World Athletics (formerly IAAF) was well represented at our congress and they have already sent the report. And they have said government should hands off interference from national associations.
Is it true that you have no right to move the congress away from the AFN secretariat, as alleged by the other faction led by Olamide George?
How can the secretariat of the AFN conduct such a congress? Please find time to visit the secretariat of the AFN if you have not, you will see it cannot host such congress. Even the congress we held in 2017 was at NICON Luxury Hotel. You remember when former minister Solomon Dalung hammered the federations that they should have a constitution of their own and not to be using guidelines from the ministry. After that, we pushed so hard and we got our own constitution around November 2017 in the presence of representatives of the Nigeria Olympics Committee. By virtue of that constitution, it gives me the right to call for a meeting and a congress. In 2018, we missed a congress because we couldn’t afford it. This year, we had an offer from Anambra State that they would sponsor the congress, so, who says we cannot hold our congress there? It’s like saying Amaju (Pinnick) cannot take the congress of the Nigeria Football Federation to Kaduna or any other state.
We don’t have any constitution that says we cannot hold our congress anywhere; they are just misinforming people. We updated our constitution yesterday (Wednesday) because the IAAF changed their name to World Athletics. This mandated us to sit down and rework the constitution to change the name and other corrections that we needed to do, and we have done that.
If this situation continues like this, what does it portend for Nigerian athletics? Are you toying with a ban from WA?
Definitely. As I talk to you, Gabon are on a ban. So, I really was shocked that the (sports) minister was encouraging this. There is a video where one of them was granting an interview after their kangaroo board meeting. In the interview, the journalist asked if the ministry was involved and he clearly said that the ministry was involved and they supported them. How can the ministry support them? This is the interference we are talking about, because that video is evidence.
