World Championships medalist Blessing Okagbare has once again taken aim at Nigerian sports authorities, accusing them of silencing athletes, sabotaging sponsorships, and covering up incompetence at the highest levels of sports administration.
In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Okagbare alleged that officials in the Ministry of Sports, the Nigerian Olympic Committee (NOC), and the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) have repeatedly undermined athletes and destroyed opportunities that could have boosted the country’s athletics scene.
“They are always looking for ways to silence an athlete’s voice. Like seriously, who do us like this? Even when an athlete boldly speaks the truth with so much evidence, they would use their own media platform to discredit the athlete as covering up for their incompetence,” Okagbare wrote.
She recalled how, ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Nigerian athletes secured what she described as “the best sponsorship deal” from a global shoe company, only for officials to sabotage it for selfish reasons.
“In 2021, when we got the best sponsorship deal from a shoes company, those in power from the MOC and FP, even one always acting as the federation president while he wasn’t anymore, did all they could to sabotage it. I asked one what they stood to gain if we didn’t get those gears, and he rolled his eyes at me,” she said.
According to Okagbare, her decision to speak out at the time attracted threats.
“I wrote about it on my social media platform, and I got a message warning me to stay out of it, that I would get what I was looking for. Days later, we all saw what happened,” she wrote.
She further alleged that while the gear eventually arrived in Tokyo, it was deliberately kept from the athletes.
“Those gears arrived and were in Tokyo in 2021, but they made sure the athletes did not get them. See ehn, these people. Now you’re trying to condemn an athlete for stating the obvious. So what if you bought her a business class flight ticket?” she said.
Okagbare, who was banned from athletics in 2022 after a doping scandal, has maintained that corruption, sabotage, and the deliberate suppression of athletes remain at the root of Nigeria’s sporting challenges.
