The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has given the country until January 16, 2026 to explain why 16 of the 17 athletes it featured at the 2025 African U-18/U-20 Championships in Abeokuta mid this year have multiple dates of birth.

The AIU is demanding that the AFN must produce verifiable documents such as birth certificates, passports, school records, or medical files to prove the athletes’ true ages, warning that anything less will trigger a formal investigation into age manipulation, a violation of the Integrity Code of Conduct and World Athletics Technical Rules.

According to sportsnow.co.ng, this is the second time in less than two years that Nigeria has been dragged into such a scandal. When contacted, AFN Technical Director, Gabriel Okon, could not respond to messages and calls from The Guardian, but one of the board members, Dr. Henry Okorie, said yesterday that the federation was not aware of the query.

“I am hearing of this for the first time. The board has not been briefed of such notice from AIU,” Okorie said from his base in Enugu. The first scandal, according to the online report, erupted under former Technical Director, Samuel Onikeku, and now history is repeating itself under Okon, exposing a culture of negligence at the top of Nigerian athletics.

The AIU’s annex reveals shocking discrepancies. Juliana Ademola Temitope was listed as being born in 2005 in earlier competitions, and 2006 at the African Juniors.

Adeola Adenji Muideen appeared with a 2004 birthdate in Lagos, but astonishingly 2009 elsewhere. Esther Aiffigbo competed in 2025 as a 2006-born athlete, yet her World Athletics profile shows 2002. Ibrahim Ajibare has no fewer than four different dates of birth, ranging from 2002 to 2009. Emmanuel Blessing was entered as 2007 at the Juniors but 2002 at the Asaba Trials.

“These, definitely, are not clerical errors but deliberate manipulations designed to sneak overage athletes into junior competitions.

“The AIU has made clear that such practices undermine the honesty standard of athletics and cast doubt on Nigeria’s integrity in global sport. Unless the federation produces credible, contemporaneous documents by the January deadline, the country faces another round of investigations that will tarnish its athletes and reputation,” the report stated.