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Ministry shuns AFN peace move, heads to Supreme Court – Punch Newspapers

’Tosin Oluwalowo

The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has shunned reconciliatory moves by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria and will head to the Supreme Court to contest an Appeal Court judgment, which recognised Ibrahim Gusau as the president of the AFN.

The move comes a day after The PUNCH reported the AFN saying they were ready for negotiations with the sports ministry for peace to reign in the federation.

The AFN and the supervisory ministry had been at loggerheads after a faction led by Olamide George, the federation’s vice president, suspended Gusau as the AFN president, which forced the Gusau-led board to declare autonomy from the sports ministry last December at the federation’s congress in Awka, Anambra State.

Gusau also dragged the sports ministry to the Federal High Court in Abuja, with the court ruling July 1 that he remained the AFN president.

The Appeal Court also affirmed the High Court ruling, throwing out the sports ministry’s appeal for lacking merit September 25.

A source in the sports ministry said two Senior Advocates of Nigeria would lead the ministry’s legal team.

He said, “What do you expect? This individual sued the minister and the ministry in the first instance, dragging them through the courts after he shunned all panels and processes put in place to resolve the matter.”

But AFN’s General Director, Siminialayi Pepple, expressed shock over the development, saying they had written the sports minister Sunday Dare proposing a visit to his office as part of their moves to ensure the hatchet was buried.

“The ministry has a right to go as far as the Supreme Court, it is their right,” Pepple told The PUNCH.

“However, we are looking for reconciliation and ways of moving athletics forward. Gusau had written a letter to the minister, which was acknowledged by the minister’s office, seeking to pay him a courtesy call, so that every grey area could be resolved. We were expecting that they would respond and invite us, but what we are seeing is that they want to go to the Supreme Court.

“We feel very sad because the athletes are the ones suffering, it is very sad. But there is nothing we can do about it; we can’t force them from exercising their rights.”

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Source: punchng.com