Federations snub ministry’s guidelines ahead of 2021 elections

Several sports federations have prepared their constitutions for the 2021, disregarding the guidelines from the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, as they prepare for next year’s elections, our correspondent has learnt.

The sports ministry had caused a stir in 2017 when it released uniform guidelines for sports federations to conduct their elections.

The guidelines limited the tenure of presidents of federations to eight years, barring those who were on a second term from contesting the third time. This was later moved to 12 years.

The amendments also meant presidents of International Federations were not eligible to contest for the presidency of national federations as against presidents and vice presidents stated in the previously drafted guidelines.

Checks by our correspondent, however, show that many of the federations had perfected their constitutions, which they intended using for the 2021 elections.

Secretary of the Nigeria Judo Federation, Abimbola Adesiyan, in an earlier interview with The PUNCH said the federation had prepared its constitution for the conduct of the elections, adding that the NJF got the approval of the sports ministry and the Nigeria Olympic Committee.

“The constitution of the federation, which we expect will be used for our next election, is ready,” Adesiyan told The Punch.

President of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation, Ishaku Tikon, said the NTTF was ready.

“We happen to be one of the few ready with our constitution,” Tikon told The Punch.

“But again, we cannot say because our constitution is ready, we’ll use it for the election without getting approval from the ministry. They are the ones that mandated each federation to get their constitutions ready.”

The Athletics Federation of Nigeria had been at loggerheads with the sports ministry after it declared autonomy from the ministry at a congress in Anambra State last December.

The AFN also approved a new constitution with which to run the affairs of the federations.

Secretary, Nigeria Boxing Federation, Sunny Obot, said their constitution was passing through the ratification stage at the ministry.

“Our constitution is ready and is being ratified by the sports ministry as we speak. 0nce they ratify it, we will send it to the international body, who will give further confirmation.”

Special Adviser on Media to the sports minister, John Joshua-Akanji, declined to speak on the matter when our correspondent called him, stating it was a policy matter.