The factional president of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Chief Tonobok Okowa has expressed his desire to reach out to the other ‘factional’ president, Engineer Ibrahim Shehu Gusau to bring lasting peace to the federation.
He made this known yesterday during the inauguration of the AFN board by the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare at the MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja.
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“By the Grace of God, we will meet and look into what has been going on. As the board recognised by the World Athletics and the CAA, we will reach out to whatever faction that is in existence.
“We will reach out to our brothers out there and see how we can bring lasting peace to the AFN,” he said.
Okowa further said his AFN led board is not autonomous and will continue to work with the federal Ministry of sports.
In the same vein, Dare during his speech promised that the federal government will always be in support of the new board.
The Minister said Nigeria will heave a sigh of relief as the crisis bedevilling the sports federation in the last 18 months comes to an end.
“For 18 months, we’ve been dealing with the crisis in AFN. I thank the ministry staff for their unwavering commitment and defending the position of the federal government of Nigeria during the trying times. And now we can heave a sigh of relief as the crisis rocking the federation ends,” he said.
Dare also advised that the board must respect the 2017 AFN constitution and more importantly the Nigeria constitution.
