Nigeria’s athletics federation says last week’s conviction of two of its athletes for their part in a fraud scheme uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is “sad and damaging” for the country.
On 10 November, Emmanuel Ineh and Toluwani Adebakin were convicted for transferring tens of thousands of dollars to the West African country as part of what the American justice department called “a complex fraud scheme”.
Prosecutors said the scheme involved athletes from multiple higher-learning institutions in the USA, with African Under-18 triple jump record holder Ineh, 23, and sprinter Adebakin, 25, operating part of the conspiracy while team-mates at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
“It’s really sad and damaging, not just to the image of the sport or federation, but Nigeria as a country,” Dare Esan, a board member of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), told BBC Sport Africa