Ebewele, Collins may return to AFN board as appeals committee submits report Friday

• Dalung has no special candidate, says Zira

There are strong indications that former technical director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Brown Ebewele and former African triple jump champion, Rosa Collins may regain their positions on the board of the athletics ruling body even as the appeals committee set up by the sports ministry to look into various cases arising from the June 13 sports federations election is expected to submits its reports on Friday.

Ebewele, who defeated Henry Amike on May 23 to pick the Coaches/Technical Officials slot on the AFN board, was disqualified during the sports federations’ elections in Abuja. Gad Onumaegbu who was said to have stepped down during the polls for technical representative, replaced Ebewele on the AFN board.

On her part, Rosa Collins, who was earlier elected on the platform of National Association of Women in Sports (NAWIS), had her name replaced with Gloria Obajimi on the day of the election. Obajimi was said to be in far away United States of America when the NAWIS election took place in Nigeria.

It was however learnt that members of the appeal committee were not satisfied with the reasons given for the disqualification of the duo. A source close to the appeal committee revealed to The Guardian that part of the conditions given to the members by the Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung was to make sure that no candidate was unjustly denied his or her right, unless if such candidate had been found guilty in a proven case of drug abuse.

“The appeal filed by these two candidates is seen as ‘heavyweight’ in the appeal committee and they might just win because to the best of my ability, there is no justification in replacing them after emerging victorious in the various elections.