By Albert Akota
The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has explained why it refused to allow Team Nigeria to the Tokyo Olympic Games to be kitted in Puma wears, saying it may embarrass the country’s athletes because the agreement signed was not genuine with the kits manufacturer.
The Ministry in a statement insisted that before Team Nigeria’s athletes are allowed to wear any foreign brand, it must following due process for the of interest of both side as well to the glory of our ambassadors at global stage.
The Ministry alleged that the factional president of the Athletics Federation Nigeria (AFN), Shehu Gusau and former technical director of AFN, Sunday Adeleye, refused to disclose the contractual agreement they allegedly signed on behalf of AFN for five years without recourse to the Board.
“The refusal of the Minister of Youth and Sports to allow Nigerian athletes to be kitted in Puma wears would drawn attacks and blackmailing against against them.
The Minister was not part of a contract to which the contract documents have not been seen or shown Nigerians before global stage.
“The Ministry steered clear of the clouds over the Puma kits and went for local content as directed under the local content law of Nigeria.
Ministry and AFN went for a local garment producer to kit Team Nigeria,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, the minister of youth and sports development, Sunday Dare, has urged Gusau to leave him out of his desperation to extricate himself from the controversial Puma contract that has placed him in a position of trying to blackmail Team Nigeria into wearing the kits.
Dare, who was reacting to online media reports aim at blackmailing him and Ministry of Youth and Sports, said the Puma kits is a subject of criminal investigations and urged Gusau and Adeleye to face for the criminal charge of conspiracy, theft and abuse of public office instituted against in court to them by the IGP.
“Gusau is planting lies and journalists are buying the lies. The Puma deal is a subject of criminal investigations.
The IG of Police charged Gusau and Sunday Adeleye to court for criminal conspiracy and theft and abuse of public office over the AFN Puma deal. This Puma kits are the disputed one.
“It is common knowledge that the former AFN president, Engineer Ibrahim Shehu Gusau with his co-travelers is desperate to extricate himself from a contract that he controversially signed the AFN into, which has now placed him in a position of trying to blackmail Team Nigeria into wearing the kits.
“Engineer Gusau and his accomplices in the controversial PUMA deal were docked before a competent court in a criminal case with suit Number CR/99/2020 IGP Vs Ibrahim Shehu Gusau & two others, for criminal conspiracy, misappropriation, criminal breach of trust and cheating in violation of the Nigeria Penal Code. The trial is ongoing and a copy of the charge sheet is attached to this statement.
It is pertinent to await the outcome of this criminal trial before making further clarifications on the extent of treachery that the disgraced former AFN president committed against the Athletics Federation of Nigeria and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The Minister and the Ministry will not commit the Nigerian government and Nigerian athletes to a deal of which the Ministry has not sighted the contractual documents that ties Nigerian athletes to a five-year contract with PUMA,” Dare said.
