President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Chief Tonobok Okowa has maade a clarion call to foreign missions in the country to make processing of entry visas to their nations smooth for athletes who are qualified to participate in competitions there.
Sports247 reports that Okowa spoke against the backdrop of difficulties faced at Hungary’s Embassy by Nigerian athletes billed to attend the recent World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, as visa issues eventually led to the 100m mixed relay team missing out.
Okowa, who is also a senior vice-president of Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), noted that it started with a delay by the local organising committee in sending visa-support letters to the Hungarian Embassy in Nigeria, and all efforts by officials failed to save the day.
He acknowledged interventions from National Sports Commission (NSC) chairman, Mallam Shehu Dikko, Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) president, Engineer Habu Gumel and prominent Nigerian sports personalities, who tried to solve the impasse, but all to no avail.
However, the AFN president enthused that, on the whole, Nigeria’s outing at the championship in Budapest was satisfying, because of what he described as an encouraging performance by a contingent of some young athletes alongside already established ones.
Okowa also promised that lessons learnt from the visa processing hiccups and other logistics matters will help in guiding against any reouccrence, especially heading into next year’s World Athletics Championship, which he declared is the AFN’s priority.
“I am very proud of the athletes and the way they represented Nigeria in Budapest. They showed courage, determination and the right competitive spirit, despite the circumstances surrounding the team’s participation.
“This is a young team, and the fact that we made it to the final in four of the five events we competed in is very encouraging. The team is a young one. The World Championship in China next year is the AFN’s big focus.
“We must learn from what happened and ensure that everything concerning visas, documentation and logistics is handled much earlier. We will continue to work with these athletes and identify areas that need improvement.
“(We will) prepare them properly for the World Championships. The athletes should not have to go through this kind of pressure when they are preparing to compete for their country,” Okowa concluded with affirmation.
