Chika Chukwumerije, Olympic Bronze medalist and All African Games gold medalist, Margaret Binga, have described the postponement of the sports federation re-run elections as unfair.
Binga had emerged president of the Board of the Nigeria Taekwondo Federation on June 12, but the election was nullified by the electoral appeals committee.
The re-run was scheduled to hold on Thursday at the National Stadium, Abuja, but Tolu Makinde, the Ministry of Sports’ Director of Information, announced the postponement of the exercise.
Makinde did not give any reason for the decision.
However, both stakeholders reacted to the development in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
Binga said the development was not good for sports and the athletes would bear the brunt of the action.
She said: “How can they tell us that the elections have been postponed without reason? This is just unfair.
“The 2020 Tokyo Olympics is around the corner and we are yet to start something. Other countries have started preparations since seven to eight years ago.
“Now somebody is saying that there is no election. All the money spent to come to this place as well as the time here could have been channeled to the development of sports.
“I pity the athletes because they are the ones getting the brunt of all these.”
On his part, Chukwumerije said there would be consequences of the decision on the sports industry.
He said: “We come here today and we are hearing that there is a court injunction and obviously the ministry cannot be seen to be disobeying that.
“But there is a lot of anger and frustration among the delegates because they spent a lot of money to be here and that is all waste.
“All this funding here could have done some tournaments for the athletes. It is the consequences of this election shift that worries me.
“We have missed out of the Commonwealth Youth Games in Bahamas and so much more for other sports. So, there is a lot of suffering going out to the athletes, professionals and all that.
“Now, the delegates do not know what is going on; information is just filtering and the situation is ripe for anarchy.
“So, we need a representative of the ministry that will come and properly brief people on what is going on. It is a mess and in the end it is the sports industry that will suffer.
“I feel sorry for the athletes that they have to go through things like this and I hope that will get our acts together as soon as possible.”
NAN reports that the affected federations are: Athletics, Judo, Gymnastics, Weightlifting and Taekwando.
Also, Rugby, which elections were cancelled previously, was expected to take part in the exercise.
