Solomon Dalung, Minister of Youth and Sport.
Former Nigeria sprint hurdler, Moses Orode Oyiki wants President Muhammadu Buhari to act fast to save the nation’s athletics from the hand of sports minister, Solomon Dalung, whom he accused of ruining the federation.
In fact, Oyiki, a lawyer, who represented Nigeria at Atlanta ‘96 Olympics Games in USA, is calling for immediate resignation of the sports minister for his ‘continuous intervention’ in the affairs of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
The former athlete feels that Dalung’s decision to set up a five-man panel to investigate allegations of doping against the vice president of AFN, Hon. Olamide George was an indication that Dalung, a lawyer, has no grasp of Sports law.
“Dalung appears to be ignorant of the fact that sports issues are dealt with mainly by duly constituted bodies as contained in IAAF guidelines to national federations,” Oyiki stated. “And such bodies must adhere to strict time limits set by the IAAF in its guidelines on Anti-Doping measures among other requirements.
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“The sports minister cannot constitute an Anti-doping Committee for a doping violation the main offender, Ms. Folashade Abugan had been banned for and served her two-year term,” Oyiki added.
He also lambasted Dalung for daring to suspend George, who was elected by the congress of the AFN. “Leading to the federations election, he (Dalung) produced a “Code of Governance 2017” for the National Sports Federations.
“Those to impeach an alleged offender are stated in the ‘code’. The minister or his cohorts cannot suspend the Vice President arbitrarily. He has a report of an Investigative Panel he set up, which sat on November 1 2017. If he is not happy with the report he should proceed to CAS.’’
‘’We are sick and tired of his incompetence. He is causing more confusion and disaffection than any Minister in living memory. He cannot continue to set up panels attending to the same issue ad infinitum until his desired report or outcome is achieved. This is despicable and unbecoming of a Minister under the Buhari regime of Change. I call on the Minister to resign forthwith and an audit of the Ministry’s accounts under his regime should be undertaken immediately. If he does not do the needful by resigning, the President should intervene immediately.”
Source: G Sport
