President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Tonobok Okowa, lacks power to declare the report of the audit committee set up by a resolution of the executive board of the federation as inconclusive, former Nigerian international, Tafida Gadzama has said.
Gadzama, who is the first vice-president of AFN stated this in a statement made available to newsmen on Tuesday, saying the committee was set up pursuant to article 14.3.3 of the AFN constitution (2023 as amended) which gives the board the power to probe the finances of the federation and that only it has the power to either accept, wholly or partially or reject the recommendations of the audit committee.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Executive Board of the AFN set up the audit committee which I chairmaned and the committee submitted its report on October 31, 2023.
“The board at its meeting of December 10, 2024 deliberated on the report with the majority of members applauding the committee for doing a thorough job,’ said Gadzama who revealed the Executive Board meeting was captured on tape.
“We are very delighted we took the decision to record the meeting and what the President said in the report in Guardian newspaper rubbishing the report is at variance with what transpired at the meeting.’
“For instance, the President apologized to board members over the 40m naira he got refunded from the 70m naira the Federation received as sponsorship fee from Premium Trust Bank albeit the events sponsored by the President were not captured in the agreement,” Gadzama said.
The Sydney 2000 Olympics gold medalist also revealed how a few board members wanted a pardon for the Secretary General at the meeting after it was unanimously agreed she failed in her duties as contained in the report.
“In one of the pleas for pardon, a three-time member of the board moved the motion for pardon and said, in his words, the Secretary General should ‘Go and sin no more’.
‘We have this on tape and may be released to the public if the President continues to distort facts about the report and the board meeting where it was discussed.
‘In fact the same board member moved that the board should approve that the President should be paid part of the money he spent organizing competitions for the AFN.
‘This was an attempt to approve the refund despite the fact that there was no agreement between the President and the board that he was loaning the federation the money.”
According to Gadzama, two other board members also moved the motion that the President should use a non-existent discretionary power not recognized by the AFN Constitution to resolve the audit committee report in which he was asked to return the N40m he was paid.
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