Dashed Hope On Favor Ofili’s 100m Race: Sports Minister urges her to concentrate on others…
Oru Leonard
Today was supposed to be the day Favor Ofili shone on the 100m track, bringing joy to Nigerians everywhere. But sadly, she was not included in list of competitors.
The Nigerian Sports Development Minister, Senator John Owan Enoh said that though frantic effort was made to resolve the issue but to avail.
“The 100m race got off to a start today, sadly without Favor Ofili.
I was on the matter until early hours of today,with the hope of giving Nigerians something to be happy about.
From the moment I stated my position on this, officials of the NOC haven’t slept, they have been on their toes.
The NOC President Engr Habu Gumel and his team kept vigil, traversing between the Director of Competition ,the Technical Committee and the World Athletics.
“I have been duly informed that some other countries have similar issues, and these aforementioned bodies do not want to open a floodgate that would become difficult to manage. However, I am not concerned about other countries. My interest is with my own country Nigeria and who is responsible for the non listing of Favor Ofili.
“Furthermore,I have been briefed that World Athletics submitted,that when the final list was published in July by it,AFN should have called its attention to the omission of Favor Ofili’s name. This still doesn’t address the issue.
At what point did her name drop out of the 100m race?
Who’s responsible for this?
What’s the motivation behind this?
What’s the trail of communication from AFN to NOC and to IOC and/or World Athletics?
All these are questions that must be answered immediately after the Olympics.
For now, I appeal to Favor Ofili to refuse to allow this distract her concentration in the remaining races for which she has been listed. (I’m in touch with her on this. And for the rest of Team Nigeria, particularly the athletics team, let them stay motivated to win” , Owan Enoh narrated.
But the question still lingered: who was responsible for this heartbreaking mistake? Only time would tell.
