New Sports Federation election guideline kncks out Gumel, Ogba, Ndanusa, others

·       Election holds June 20

The Ministry of Youths and Sports and the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) yesterday released the guidelines for the conduct of elections into the executive board of the various sports federations.
The guidelines, which were presented to stakeholders at a meeting for deliberations attracted criticisms from certain quarters as it ruled out some long serving members of some federations.
The stakeholders meeting agreed however, that the next election will be held on June 20 in Abuja.
The guideline was very emphatic on the tenure of presidents when it noted that any candidate that has spent two terms in office will no longer run for another term, just as it ruled out any candidate that holds a position in the continental and international body of the sport.
The guideline however, generated some criticisms from the affected candidates before it was brought open for voting among the stakeholders who overwhelmingly voted in support.
With the adoption of the guideline, veteran sports federation presidents like the International Olympics Committee member and president of the Nigeria Volleyball federation, Habu Gumel, Nigeria Athletics Federation chairman, Solomon Ogba, Nigeria Tennis Federation chairman, Sani Ndanusa, Nigeria Basketball Federation chairman, Tijani Umar as well as the chairman of Nigeria Handball Federation, Yusuf Dauda are not eligible to contest.
Other provisions of the guidelines included is the pegging of the age of candidates to 21 with a minimum academic qualification of West African School Certificate, while the candidates for the post of president will not be less than 30 years of age.
Declaring the stakeholders meeting open, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung noted that the National Sports Federations have not been able to deliver on the present administrations’ aspiration of moving Nigeria's sports to the next level, blaming it to their flawed corporate governance structure.
“In the past, Sports Federation Elections had been marred with controversy; with various accusations of manipulation and connivance of the Government Sports Authority – the then National Sports Commission (NSC). 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,' the minister stated.-The Authority