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Nigeria: Ngerem Slams NSC, AFN
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Leadership (Abuja)
25 July 2008
Posted to the web 25 July 2008
Nigeria's track and field stakeholders have continue to express their anger over the country's failure to qualify in two relays event of the forthcoming summer Olympic in Beijing, China. The Nigeria's women's 4x100 metres and the men's 4x400 metres relay teams failed to get a place among the top world 16 teams for the quadrennial Games. Consequently, Nigeria will only take part in the men's 4x100and the women's 4x400.
In an interview with NAN in Lagos, former President of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Mr Dan Ngerem, blamed the incompetence on the part of those running sport in the country. Ngerem said Nigeria was aware of the qualifying standard set by the International Associations of Athletics Federation (IAAF). "There shall be a minimum of 16 relay teams in each relay event based on the aggregate of the two fastest times achieved by national teams at IAAF recognised international events in the qualifying period of Jan.1, 2007 to July 16, 2008." He noted.
Ngerem further observed that Nigeria failed to avail itself of the opportunity to take part in the meets that would have enable the country attain the qualifying standard during the period. He said Nigeria only participated in the 9th All Africa Games in Algiers last July, the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan and the African Championships in May, 2008 in Addis Ababa. The former AFN chief wondered why the federation failed to get the IAAF approval to include relays in the June 23 Abuja Grand Prix.
He said Nigeria even failed to attend any of the more than 20 IAAF relay events during the outdoor season, which should have qualified the country for the Olympics. He described Nigeria's protest to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asking for an extension period as well as the complaints that Nigeria was denied visa to attend a meet in Greece as an embarrassing. Because, according to him, AFN failed to comply with requirements for visa applications, adding that it takes at least two weeks to get Shengem visa. NAN also reports that the IOC had described Nigeria's protest as baseless, as the country had a two-year period within which the relay teams could have qualified. Ngerem said the international community did things systematically unlike Nigeria where things were done on a fire-brigade approach. Relays. He wondered where were the National Sports Commission (NSC) 'experts' , who evolved the rotational national relays between April and May. Ngerem noted that the N50 million which was spent to organise the national relays came from at a time the NSC said it had no money. He slammed the NSC and AFN for squandering "scarce resources which should have been spent to send the relay teams to meets abroad.
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