Stakeholders clamour for change as NOC elections hold December 15

SOME stakeholders in the country’s sports have started a campaign for a new leadership for the Nigeria Olympic Committee ( NOC), which general elections will hold on December 15 in Jalingo, Taraba State.

Incumbent NOC President, Habu Gumel, is the longest serving head of the Olympic body, which responsibility is to partly supervise the country’s sports federations and is fully responsible for the coordination of Nigerian competitors at the Olympic, Commonwealth Games and the All Africa Games.

Following what some of the stakeholders, including federations’ presidents described as the comatose state of the NOC, interested parties have started a campaign, which they said would regenerate the NOC to become more effective.

The guidelines for the elections have been released and the document underlines the intention to conduct a free, fair and credible elections.

However, the stakeholders are worried that the ballot process may not usher in new executives, who would redirect the affairs of the Committee.

Assessing the performance of the incumbent executive, the stakeholders, who pleaded anonymity, said, “Gumel has a long histor y in

Nigeria’s sports administration that dates back to 1988 when he first became the chairman of the Nigeria

Volleyball Federation.

“From there, he made his way to the Afric a V olleyball Confederation and the

International Volleyball federation, but made ver y insignificant impact on the sport in Nigeria and Africa.

Gumel joined the Nigeria

Olympic Committee in 1997, a nd like he did with

Volleyball, gradually crawled his way to emerging pre sident of the Nigerian

Olympic body for two docile tenures from 2002 to 2010. He returned as president again in 2014 and still ru ns the affairs of the Olympic Committee till date.