Okowa Elected AFN President, As Faction Keeps Gusau

Tonobok Okowa on Monday in Abuja emerged as the new President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), pledging to ensure unity in the divided Nigerian athletics family, but his near unanimous election was scarred with reports of a faction returning Ibrahim Gusau to the same position.

At the AFN Extraordinary Elective Congress held at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Okowa was elected unopposed with AFN Congress delegates still giving him 41 of the available 44 votes.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Congress which had 51 delegates in attendance had 44 of them taking part in the voting process.

Delegates were drawn from the state athletics associations across the country, the zonal sports bodies, as well as other sports stakeholders such as the para-military and military.

Others are representatives of the national body of Physical Health and Exercise practitioners (NAPHER-SD), National Association of Women in Sports (NAWIS), international sports bodies, institutional sports bodies and athletes.

The representatives of the technical officials/coaches bodies, as well as the philanthropists/sponsors/ex-officio were however not available.

Besides Okowa, the Congress of the AFN which was presided over by Ambassador Haruna Manta, Chairman of Niger state athletics association, also elected the federation’s First Vice-President and Second Vice-President.

The election was conducted by a team led by Elias Gora, a former Secretary-General of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC).

Gadzama Tafida-Wadzani who represents the North-East zone was elected unopposed First Vice-President, with 43 of the 44 votes.

Rosaline Collins-Okah who represents NAWIS was elected Second Vice-President with 42 of the 44 votes.

The three of them are joined on the new AFN board by Manta, representing the North-Central zone, Yusuf Liman (North-West), Victor Okorie (South-East) and Solomon Alao (South-West).

The rest are Prof. Emmanuel Ojeme (NAPHER-SD), Maria Wophill (international sports bodies), Samuel Onikeku (institutional sports representative) and Henry Okorie (athletes’ representatives).

Representatives of the technical bodies/coaches association, as well as the philanthropists/sponsors/ex-officio, will join the board alongside the Federation’s Secretary-General for a 14-man board.

Okowa, who is Chairman of the Delta State Sports Commission and represents the South-South zone on the board of the AFN, while thanking the delegates for electing him pledged to reach out for unity.

“We have had free and fair elections here today, and I thank you all for this. I will not disappoint you.

“However, I must acknowledge that there was out there others who conducted one election or the other.

“We will reach out to them so that we will have a united family, in order to jointly do this job of raising more athletics talents and developing the existing ones to move to greater heights,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the other AFN board election that took place hundreds of kilometers from where Okowa was elected, the Ibrahim Gusau-led faction, re-elected as President.

A statement, simply signed “Media Coordinator AFN”, said Gusau was re-elected earlier on Monday after he polled 20 votes to defeat Uche Muoma who got two votes from the 22 delegates present.

It added that Sunday Adeleye got 15 votes to become First Vice-President, ahead of Solomon Abari who had 4 votes and Patrick Estate with 3 votes.

For the post of Second Vice-President, Nneka Ikem-Anibeze polled 13 votes ahead of Esther Hindi who came close with 8 votes and Janet Wilson who managed one vote. (NAN)

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