Nesiama appointed Africa Games athletics’ referee

Former Technical Director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Omatseye Nesiama, has been appointed as referee for the athletics events of the Africa Games holding in Accra, Ghana.

The Games will begin on March 8, but the athletics event will hold from March 18 to 22. Nesiama is among the highest-graded technical officials in Africa having attained the World Athletics Silver level status. He was appointed to the Confederation of Africa Athletics (CAA) Technical Officials Panel in 2017.

In 2021, he was nominated to train Ghana’s technical officials in preparation for the Africa Games. Nesiama has proved his mettle as a Technical Official at a couple of continental competitions, including the Africa U-18, U-20 and the Senior Athletics Championships at different times.

Specifically, he was the Competition Director for the first-ever Africa Youth Championships (U-18) held in 2013 at Warri, Nigeria. He is also on record as the first Nigerian to have passed the qualifying examination to be licensed as a World Athletics Athletes’ Representative when it was introduced in 2011.

He is a World Athletics certified technical officials’ lecturer and has been a member of the CAA Technical and Competitions Commission since 2014.
Asked how he felt about the appointment, Nesiama said he is quite happy about the recognition and nomination by CAA, promising to do his best to ensure his performance in the areas assigned to attract more accolades to Nigeria. He also believes it would inspire more athletic lovers to take up technical officiating.