Defiant Gara Gombe Dares Nilayo Sports Mgt Over Defamation Claim

Chairman, Gombe State Athletics Association and grassroots sports promoter Hon. Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe has responded to the Nilayo Sports Management Limited, challenging the company to sue him if it wishes.

The outspoken sports administrator made it clear that his statements on his Facebook page handle was not to defame Bukola Olopade and Nilayo Sports Management Limited in any way, instead, he was just telling the company to go and answer the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the petition he wrote about the alleged diversion of sponsorship fees meant for the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).

Nilayo Sports Management Company Limited, organizer of the annual Access Bank Lagos City Marathon, through its lawyers, Olawale Balogun & Co, had threatened to drag Gara Gombe to court for alleged defamation unless he retracted his statement and apologised within seven days.

Olawale Balogun & Co, alleged that Gara Gombe, made defamatory statements against their client hos online facebook platform ‘ Sports Stakeholders Series 1 With Gara Gombe’

“The allegations you published meant and were understood to mean that our client is fraudulent, conspires to commit fraud, dishonest and guilty of all allegations.

In the light of the above, our client requires from you as a matter of urgency, a full and unequivocal immediate retraction of the defamatory allegations, unreserved apology which must be published and repeated in your online facebook platform ‘ Sports Stakeholders Series 1 With Gara Gombe’,” Nilayo Sports Management company’s lawyers wrote Gara Gombe.

Nilayo Sports Management Ltd is a consultant to the AFN and brokered the deal between the Federation and Premium Trust Bank.

In response to the letter from Nilayo Sports Management Ltd’s lawyers, a defiant Alhaji Gara Gombe insists he has only asked the company to go an answer to his petition before the EFCC after Olopade failed twice to report to the invitations of the anti-graft agency.

Sometime last year, Alhaji Gara Gombe said he petitioned the EFCC citing unwholesome practices in the execution of the agreement.

In the petition, he asked the EFCC to probe Olopade (who brokered the deal at the time) and Nilayo Sports Management Ltd to reveal the bank account used to warehouse the sponsorship fees of N100 million naira paid, especially, for the first year of sponsorship following an AFN Audit Committee report and admission by the former Secretary General of the AFN, Ms Rita Mosindi that the money was not paid into an SPV account specifically mentioned in the agreement.

Gara Gombe also wrote in the petition that EFCC should look at how the money was disbursed, including how the broker, Nilayo Sports Management Ltd was paid its commission of N30 million naira, being 30% of the contract sum per year.