Nigerian athletics legend, Innocent Egbunike, who was the coach for Team Nigeria’s athletics team to London 2012 Olympic Games blames AFN President, Solomon Ogba’s divide and rule tactics for the team’s failure.

Ogba also led the athletics team to another disastrous outing at the Rio Olympics last month.

Egbunike’s report, obtained exclusively by our correspondent, details how nepotism, lack of discipline, etc, created a split among the athletes to produce a house of horror.

According to the report, the problem started at the trials in Calabar,

“Considering that the Olympic trials is a competition that gives athletes the opportunity to compete for a spot on their nation’s team, the 2012 Olympic trials was faced with class division among the athletes. We had Delta athletes, AFN invited athletes and athletes with “A” standard from 2012 season. The “A” standard athletes were housed in a five star hotel and the remaining athletes stayed in a regular hotel. This created divisions among the athletes. This was part of what spilled over throughout the duration of the Games.’’

Egbunike wrote in the report that Ogba selected the team for the trial without recourse to the laid down rules.
“We had met before the trials and I requested that we (myself, Yussuf Ali, Maria Wophill, Gabriel Okon, and Evangelist/President Ogba) put the standard for the African Championships and the standard for Olympic Games in black and white and decided that A and B standard athletes will represent Nigeria at the African Championships and A standard athletes will represent Nigeria at Olympic Games. We were supposed to meet to pick the team after the trials. To my surprise, the team was announced that night and when I asked, I was told that it was the AFN tradition to announce the team the last night of the competition.’’

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