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Ebewele plots Gusau’s fall in AFN bye-election

By Gowon Akpodonor
04 July 2017   |   4:11 am
Brown Ebewele has began what has been termed an underground campaign in his bid to wrestle the federation’s presidency from Alhaji Ibraham Gusau in the bye election slated for Friday in Abuja.

Brown Ebewele has began what has been termed an underground campaign in his bid to wrestle the federation’s presidency from Alhaji Ibraham Gusau in the bye election slated for Friday in Abuja.

Former Technical Director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Brown Ebewele has began what has been termed an underground campaign in his bid to wrestle the federation’s presidency from Alhaji Ibraham Gusau in the bye election slated for Friday in Abuja.

The Abulrasaq Salau–led appeals committee last week, sacked Gusau, who was elected AFN president in the June 13 sports federations’ polls.

However, in the fresh election holding on Friday, Gusau has two major hurdles to cross, as he face Charles Musa Yayock in the North West Zone election, where delegates from seven states, including Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Jigawa, Katsina and Sokoto will have to elect one of the candidates into the AFN board.

Yayock had protested to the appeals committee alleging that he was disqualified on the day of the election as representative of the North West zone without valid reason, a petition the Committee upheld last week while nullifying the AFN president election.

If Gusau fails to beat Yayock in the North West zone election on Friday, Rosa Collins, who lost in the June 13 AFN president election will automatically emerge as the president of the body.

It was learnt yesterday that Ebewele, who was reinstated by the appeals committee as the representative of coaches/technical association to the board of AFN was working round the clock to make sure Gusau suffers defeat in the North West zone election to pave the way for his choice candidate, Rosa Collins, to scale through as the new AFN president.

One other area Ebewele and his team is said to be beaming their searchlight is the South East zone bye election, where former sprinter, Charity Opara Asonze (MON) will face former board member, Prof. Ken Anugweje and a representative from Abia State.

In the June 13 election, Charity Opara was disqualified and she protested to the appeals committee, which nullified the South East zone election after stating that she was wrongly disqualified. At that election, Opara and Prof. Anugweje presented two nomination documents from the same Imo State (one from the Director of Sports and the other from State Athletics Association chairman). While Opara was stopped from cashing her vote, Prof. Anugweje was allowed.

To Brown Ebewele, Friday’s bye-election in Abuja will go a long way in re-shaping the future of nation’s athletics.

He told The Guardian in a telephone chat yesterday that their target is to woo back sponsors who deserted the federation few years ago. “ We have to finish the business of the bye election on Friday before thinking of what to do next. But seriously speaking, we are already looking ahead on how to re-position Nigeria’s athletics.”

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