Nigeria has been declared non-compliant by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee, it was announced on Thursday in Baku,Azerbaijan.
Frederic Donze, WADA’s chief operating officer, told insidethegames the decision was taken because of “structural” issues related to testing at the Nigerian National Anti-Doping Committee.
Donze claimed, however, that they were already working on the deficiencies and WADA were confident these would be resolved in the near future.
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WADA,according to sources frowns at the interference of the Sports Ministry,especially the Sports Minister,Solomon Dalung in the affairs of an agency that is required to be independent.
They pointed at the Minister’s decision to set up the committee to probe the doping allegations against Honourable Olamide George when it should have the duty of the AFN’s Anti-doping Committee to carry out the probe.
It was also gathered that the Nigerian National Anti-Doping Committee only appears in name as no budgetary provision was made for running the committee.
Complete Sports recalls that a member of Nigeria’s 4x400m gold winning quartet at the 2000 Sydney Olympics,Fidelis Gadzama
dragged the AFN to WADA for failing to properly investigate the 2010 doping case involving quartermiler, Folasade Abugan who tested positive at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi,India.
Gadzama alleged that messrs Solomon Ogba,the immediate past president of the federation and Ibrahim Gusau,the then vice-president of the federation who succeeded Ogba as president last year failed to investigate the alleged courier who reportedly sold the drug to the athlete.
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Also,former Commonwealth triple jump champion,Tosin Oke told the governing body for track and field,the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in 2015 how he had witnessed insufficient dopingcontrols in Nigeria.
“This year [2015], I saw an athlete enter the doping room claiming to be another athlete,” he wrote. “As ID is not asked for/checked, anything is possible.”
Last year the Nigerian National Anti-Doping Committee collected 28 samples, seven of which tested positive, according to data from WADA.
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