The Secretary General of the Nigeria Modern Pentathlon Federation (NMPF), Olufemi Abioye has appealed to the Federal Government and the Nigeria Olympics Committee (NOC) to wade into the impending crisis capable of consuming the federation.
Abioye traced the genesis of the crisis to the alleged high handedness and financial misappropriation of funds from Union International Pentathlon Modern (UIPM), Confederation of Pentathlon Modern (CAPM), Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), corporate organization and high net worth individual by the former president of the NMPF, Jonathan Nnaji.
He appealed to the NOC, FMYSD, Confederation of Africa Pentathlon (CAPM) and Union International Pentathlon Modern to hold Nnaji accountable, to give account of his stewardship in the last eight years and stop parading himself as an International delegate of the Sport as he lost election in the Executive Board of the CAPM recently,.
He also called for the provision of a financial audit of resources expended and the report of the meeting or panel where the Secretary General was investigated and found guilty of misappropriation of resources and visa fraud.
He also alleged that €1,018.95m was released by UIPM for branding and event management and paid into the private account of Nnaji which he could not account for despite the repeated demands by the Secretary General of the Federation which led to the resignation of two board members.
“The Youth Olympic Games Qualifier for Africa held in Lagos was characterized by unilateral decision making and funds diversion by Chief Nnaji with the records showing the diversion of $5,000 from the IOC Olympic Solidarity grant out of the $10,000 received through the NOC.
“On several occasions, I had persistently criticized the reckless and arbitrary spending of the Federation resources by Chief Jonathan Nnaji but all my complaints fell on deaf ears.
“Nnaji practically turned the Federation to his tribal and regional organization whereby he deliberately embarked on selective payment of suppliers based on tribal affiliations and consideration to the detriment of suppliers from other tribes”, Abioye alleged.
Nnaji’s highhandedness and one man show in handling the affairs of the Federation made him change the password to the official communication email for the Federation as well as the phone number to the banking activities and notification to his personal phone number thereby taking over the Secretariat immediately after the qualifiers, this was duly communicated to other board members despite the intervention of the former NOC Secretary General, Tunde Popoola.
It is on record that he lost the federation election before losing his World Taekwondo Council membership a couple of weeks back to another Nigerian, Ms Binga.
“In an act of desperation, Nnaji also picked a nomination form to contest election as Vice President of Confederation of Africa Pentathlon (CAPM) despite not being an active member of any national body,” Mr. Abioye said.
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