On Wednesday, July 28, 2021, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of World Athletics issued a statement that ruled out 10 of the 23 athletes Nigeria entered for the athletics events at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The body, which is charged with the responsibility of managing all integrity issues, doping or non-doping, for athletics, threw out the athletes for failing to meet minimum testing requirements under Rule 15 of the Anti-Doping Rules for Category A countries.
That embarrassing public statement not only rendered over 40 per cent of the athletics contingent of Team Nigeria ineligible to contest their events at the global sports showpiece, it also put the country on the spot when it expressly mentioned Nigeria as “the most affected country” for having 10 of her athletes fail to meet these minimum requirements.
The requirements for Category A countries are not overboard and they are provided by the AIU to Member Federations like the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) with guidelines published under the “National Federation Anti-Doping Obligations”. For every Category A country’s athlete, the standards require that they undergo three no-notice out-of-competition tests (urine and blood) in a 10-month period leading up to a major event.
That was all the AIU required and the absolute low bar the AFN failed to scale. By so doing, it brought an untoward and disgraceful negative media attention to Nigeria, condemned the dreams of 10 hardworking athletes that had toiled over the postponement of the Olympics and sacrificed to scale through the hoops of qualifying for the delayed Games, only to get to Tokyo and become ineligible because of the irresponsibility of their country’s sports management.
In the first place, Nigeria had no business being considered a Category A country and classed alongside Ukraine, Belarus, Ethiopia, Kenya, amongst others, as she often produces clean athletes without doping histories. Under the AIU rules, National Federations are categorised annually by the AIU Board in three different categories: A, B and C. The categorisation is codified according to the level of doping risk to the sport. It is structured with Category A having the highest doping risk to the sport and Category C the lowest.
However, as the AFN devolved into infighting and factional warfare, the very business of piloting the country’s athletics and building up competitive athletes was relegated to unimportance and actual athletics responsibilities were abandoned. In 2019, the AFN failed to report on compliance with Rule 15’s obligations as mandated by a Category B country and as stipulated under the AIU’s guidelines leading to the country’s demotion to a Category A status.
As the AIU had associated Nigeria with a weak domestic testing apparatus, it became the responsibility of sports governance in the country to ensure the eligibility of her athletes by meeting every minimum standard in due time. All verbal assurances that came from the Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, to the effect that Team Nigeria was ready for Tokyo have fallen flat on the basis of Wednesday’s AIU report.
Although the beleaguered AFN quickly accepted its flawed role in the outcome by admitting its failure for the lapses that rendered 10 Team Nigeria athletes ineligible, it sought to excuse itself by saying the ineligible athletes were tested but the tests did not comply with required standards and brought up the notion that no prohibited substances were linked to any Nigerian athlete.
Their feeble attempt at downplaying the severity of the situation is disappointing at best and unbecoming of what is required at this global level of sporting governance, at worst. When a governing body cannot meet the barest minimum requirements, not only must an outright apology be forthcoming, voluntary resignations or direct firings must follow for the country to demonstrate how highly it places integrity and a no-nonsense intention to make amends.
To compound matters, PUMA, the German Sportswear manufacturing giant on Wednesday terminated its 4- year contract with the AFN. According to the company’s director, Manuel Edlheimb, the company cancelled the contract “As a direct consequence of the recent developments, particularly at the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 and pursuant to clauses 9.2 and 7.3 of the Agreement.”
Nigeria has seen enough of these failures in governance that unless very strict measures are taken to arrest recalcitrance, especially in the AFN with all the factional internal bickerings and the internecine warfare, this cycle will perpetuate itself just as the athletes themselves acknowledged in their angry reactions to the development, to the detriment of sports, in general, and the country’s reputation, in particular.
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