BY JOE APU
The Ministry of Youth and Sports has announced the reshufflement of national association secretaries with the Nigeria Football Federation scribe, Mohammed Sanusi and his boxing counterpart Chimezie Asiegbu retaining their seats.
While the two retained their positions, the ministry redeployed the likes of Segun Oguntade, Olumide Bamiduro, Gloria Ekwempu, Ademu Elijah, Beyioku Niyi, Abobi Patrick and Olalekan Alabi to the Federation and Elite Athletes Department FEAD while Patrick Okeke, Clement Iyaluegbehe, Ajao Olufemi, Ganiyu-Opolo Abidemi and Dapo Akinyele were posted to Grassroots Sports Development.
Also moved are Chinedu Ezealah, Thecla Opara and Iwang Isreal.
Uche Onwumeh and Mbora Ikana are deployed to the Lagos Liason office while Onyeka Emeka Augustine, Birma Buba Ademu and Ogenyi Queen move to Human Resource Management.
In the re-deployment, a new set of ministry staff were assigned to the federations which hitherto were managed by those posted to the ministry departments, while the others were moved to other federations.
In athletics, Kabiru Yusuf takes the saddle with Osuoha Chinedu heading to the Nigeria Basketball Federation while weightlifting is now to be manned by Umar Lambu.
Others are Balewa Augustine for table tennis, Libata Abdullahi Ahmed heads to wrestling federation and Mariam Akande for tennis just as Sani Mohammed takes charge of aquatic sports.
According to a statement issued by Nneka Ikem-Anibeze, the special assistant on media to the sports minister, all appointments are with immediate effect stressing that the changes were based on the six geo-political zones to achieve efficiency, professionalism and national spread for equality and sustainability.