•Dalung promises to support Quadri
From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
MINISTRY of Youth and Sports Development, has fixed Wednesday, July 12 as date for the re-run into the cancelled four sports federation elections.
The Electoral Appeals Committee had last weekend cancelled elections into the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) Gymnastics, Wrestling and Taekwondo federations.
The Chairman of the National Sports Federations Electoral Appeals Committee, Alhaji Abdulrazak Salau, who disclosed the date in a statement, argued that the influx of petitions which followed the June 13, 2017 elections at the Abuja National Stadium were overwhelming and needed more time to attend to.
“We have had a beehive of activities since the Appeals Committee gave its verdict on June 30, 2017. The Committee has been bombarded with petitions and complaints from these Federations including Rug- by. It became necessary for us to shift the election re-run date by 5 days to enable the monitoring bodies including the Election Committees to conclude screening and verification of candidates to ensure that what happened in the first election does not repeat itself.
Meanwhile, Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Barrister Solomon Dalung, has promised the readiness of the ministry to support Nigeria’s number one Table Tennis player, Aruna Quadri, congratulating him for booking a ticket as Africa’s sole representative to the ITTF World Cup in France.
Barr Dalung who described the feat as a confirmation of the Oyo state born ping pong star’s superiority in Africa, said his emergence as a force to reckon with at the global level did not come as a surprise. “This victory has once again demonstrated the superiority of Quadri in Africa. This is good news to us in the Ministry and also all sports loving Nigerians who have been following his career.”
Dalung described Aruna who recorded a hard fought 4-3 victory over his continental rival, Omar Assar in the finals of the 2017 ITTF Africa as a “true patriot and consummate professional.”