Gumel, Ogba, Ndanusa, Umar, others knocked out

Polls hold June 20

A new set of officials would emerge at the end of the sports federations’ elections going by the guidelines released by the Sports Ministry yesterday.

Already, criticisms have trailed the guidelines presented to sports stakeholders at a meeting called by the Minister, Solomon Dalung yesterday. But the stakeholders all agreed that the polls will hold on June 20 in Abuja.

According to the guidelines, any candidate that has spent two terms in office will no longer run for another term. It also bars any candidate that holds a position in a continental and international sports body from holding a position locally.

Although some of the affected candidates criticised the guidelines, it was overwhelmingly supported by the stakeholders during a vote to decide whether to adopt it or not.

What the guidelines means is that Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) President, Habu Gumel, who is the volleyball federation boss, Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) president, Solomon Ogba, Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) chairman, Tijani Umar and the chairman of Nigeria Handball Federation, Yusuf Dauda are not eligible to contest the elections.

It also ruled that no candidate for membership of any association should be less than 20 and must hold a minimum of school certificate, while presidential aspirants must not be less than 30 years.

Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, posited that the federations have failed to deliver on their mandates due to their flawed corporate governance structure.
He said, “In the past, Sports Federation Elections had been mired in controversy, with various accusations of manipulation and connivance of the government sports authority – the then National Sports Commission.

We have had cases of imposition of candidates and exclusion of the real stakeholders, thus calling into question the credibility of the entire process. This has resulted in many boards having majority of their members with either little or no knowledge of the sport, or even any passion for it.

In some cases, Federations had been run as personal estates with impunity and sometimes outright disregard to the Ministry.