By; AYO OJEDOKUN, Lagos
Contrary to the Information coming out from the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, that there was a level playing ground for all contestants at the just concluded Sports Federation election, a stakeholder and Chairman of the Edo State Wrestling Association, Morris Atula has debunked that claim, insisting that guidelines for the election were not observed.
In a statement he issued, Atula popularly known as Golden Warrior during his fighting days described the continued changing of the electoral guidelines and inclusion of third term for serving President of Nigerian Wrestling Federation as most unfortunate.
He pointed out that allowing the President to serve another term of four years will deny others the opportunity to contribute their quota to the development of the mats man game as well as affect sports development negatively; saying that the person going for third term will have no new ideas to introduce and implement for the development of the country’s sports.
Apart from accusing the Sports Minister, Sunday Dare of undue interference with the electoral process by including third term, change of voters from Directors of Sports to Chairmen of Sports Associations, he wondered why the guidelines kept changing to favour some contestants which he believes makes nonsense of the whole exercise even as he maintained that the election into the board of Nigeria Wrestling Federation was not free and fair as there was no level playing ground for all the contestants
‘’This is the first time in the history of sports in Nigeria that something like this is happening. All of us witnessed the attempt by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to have third term tenure and how the people aborted the dream and made sure it never saw the light of the day, I expect all concerned this time, sports men and women including sports journalists in particular to take up this issue squarely”, noted the former World Light-Heavy Weight (Pro Wrestling) Champion and coach.
He called on the Sports Minister to rise to the occasion and remove the third term agenda that was smuggled overnight into the guidelines and allow for free and fair elections for proper sports development in Nigeria.
