Don’t celebrate, Gara-Gombe tells new AFN board

‘You Can’t Rubbish Our Judicial Design And Assemble Away With It’

What appears to be one other ‘crisis’ could moreover simply be brewing in the path of the newly elected board of Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), if the Chairman of Gombe Notify Athletics Association, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara-Gombe’s phrases are anything else to dash by.

The AFN election held in Abuja, on Thursday, June 12, noticed the re-election of Tonobok Okowa as President with two modern Vice Presidents. The two ragged Vice Presidents, Tafida Gadzama and Rosa Collins-Okah, did no longer bother to contest election into the board this time around.

Gara-Gombe suggested The Guardian, the outdated day, that there changed into once a court hump on scrutinize to stop the election, nonetheless the folk disregarded it.

“Potentialities are you'll presumably moreover’t garbage our judicial machine and accept away with it,” Gara-Gombe mentioned. “These celebrating victory as board members of the AFN will be terrified to hang a study in the arrival days that they in point of fact laboured in vain. The long arm of the judiciary will obtain up with them no topic how they're in search of to manoeuvre the machine.”

Gara-Gombe mentioned that he's contesting the legality of the AFN’s unheard of congresses held on December 14, 2024, in Bayelsa and April 10, 2025, in Delta Notify, in conjunction with that the elections contravened ‘advantageous and constitutional route of.’

“Your entire congresses violated Article 10.1.5 of the AFN Constitution, which mandates that all relevant paperwork be despatched to direct associations at least 30 days earlier than any congress. Their failure to prepare this protocol renders all choices made, in conjunction with the formation of the Electoral Committee null and void.

“A hump on scrutinize changed into once even served by a Federal High Court bailiff to all of the relevant our bodies, in conjunction with the AFN, significant the legitimacy of the board elections, nonetheless they disregarded it. Even in the animal kingdom, they've some recommendations guiding them no longer to chat of a substantial Nation esteem Nigeria. Of us need to learn the ideal technique to prepare straightforward advantageous and procedural recommendations. We're no longer in a banana republic,” Gara-Gombe acknowledged.

The AFN elections had been on the muse slated for Would possibly simply 31 in Asaba, Delta Notify, nonetheless the Nationwide Sports Commission (NSC) quick it be moved to a neutral venue in Abuja.