Former Nigerian sprinter Olusoji Fasuba has launched a scathing attack on the hierarchy of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, following a statement put out by the nation’s governing body in the wake of Favour Ofili’s purported switch to Turkey.
Ofili’s switch to the European country was made public on Sunday, just three months before the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
The 22-year-old Ofili was said to have advised the Athletics Integrity Unit of her frustration with the AFN, noting that her switch of allegiance was not financially motivated.
In the wake of the news the AFN president, Tonobok Okowa, released a statement, where he highlighted the athlete’s high-handedness while competing for Nigeria.
Fasuba, a former African record holder in the men’s 100m spoke during an interview on Lagos Talks 91.3FM on Monday where he expressed his disappointment at the events which played out before reports alleging that Ofili had switched national allegiance to Turkey.
“I’ll say it again, whoever said that shows and tells me that there’s a lack of leadership there, understanding what leadership is all about. Leadership is not about going down there and making people do things. Leadership is about going down there and serving people, finding a common ground of bringing everyone together and letting them understand this is what we need to achieve. Well, I think that’s where the major failure is. And I think if this can be corrected this time, I think it may help solve losing our athletes.”
He added, “These are the implications of something like this because if a high-profile athlete like Ofili can do such a thing, it just kind of tells other athletes that maybe this is a direction in which we should be pulling. When they say they pay you training grants, the question there is how much is this training grant? Have you done this consistently? For how many years have you received the training grants? There’s a lot of things. Sometimes they may pay you $5,000, or $10,000 and think that’s enough to get you an Olympic medal. Sorry, that’s a joke. That is a complete joke.”
Fasuba also backed the Paris 2024 Olympic Games 200m finalist.
“Yes, I support her 101 per cent because she was treated badly and you know what? Whoever did it to her is still on the board and there was no penance for that. If the penance was paid, I would say yes hopefully she was wrong on that. But it is wrong and everybody will feel that whoever did that to her is still in the board or still in the administrative position.”
“She’s going to have that fear. She will never run fast again if she has that mindset that that person is still there. So, I think I support 100 per cent and I think she made the right choice on this occasion,” Fasuba concluded.
