Favour Ofili, a Nigerian sprint star, has reportedly switched international allegiance to Turkey, from 31 May, after expressing frustration with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
According to veteran reporter Kenny Raynor, sources close to the matter told TvjNewscentre (a Jamaican News outlet) that the 22-year-old athlete informed the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) that her decision was not financially motivated, but stemmed from her long-standing dissatisfaction with how Nigerian athletics officials had handled her career.
Ofili, who holds personal bests of 10.93 seconds in the 100m and 21.96 seconds in the 200m, reportedly detailed to the AIU how she missed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to Nigeria’s failure to meet mandatory anti-doping requirements for selected athletes. That same incident affected nine other Nigerian athletes who were disqualified from competition, resulting in global embarrassment for the country.
More recently, she was also excluded from the 100m event at the Paris 2024 Olympics due to what she described as another administrative oversight by the AFN. Although she ran in the 200m and placed sixth in the final, her omission from the 100m lineup further deepened her disillusionment with the federation.
Though Nigerian sports authorities set up an investigative committee to get to the root of what happened in Paris, PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the recommendation that Ofili should be compensated with $5,000 and a letter of apology were not done.
Aside from the redeployment of Rita Mordi (the then AFN scribe), who was indicted in the committee report, the Technical Director, Samuel Onikeku, who was also indicted, has since returned to the AFN board, though he is no longer the Technical Director.
