Tijani Yusuf exonerates Egbunike from blame

AS absolute uncertainty surrounds the job of athletics coach, Innocent Egbunike, due to Nigeria's woeful showing at the London Olympics, former director in the National Sports Commission (NSC), Dr. Tijani Yussuf, has said the United States (U.S.)-based coach should not be blamed, arguing that sacking him will be counter productive.Tijani said there was so little the coach, who was employed just six weeks before a major event like the Olympics, would have done to improve the athletes. He suggested that instead of sacking him, the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) should begin to think about engaging him with many grassroots programmes aimed at fishing out new talents for the country.The former secretary general of the defunct Nigeria Football Association (NFA) said that all hands must be on deck to avert another monumental failure at the next Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2016.'I differ on putting the whole blame for Nigeria's athletics dismal outing at the just concluded London 2012 Olympic Games on Egbunike,' he said.'The fact we should know is that the reliable athletes we hinged our hope of winning medals on were busy competing in the major grand prix in Europe few weeks to their event and burnt themselves out as a result of this.'But athletes like Usain Bolt and the rest abstained from such competitions to concentrate on the Games and the result they got was a testimony to this fact. We can only blame Egbunike if he knew and allowed them to compete in such meets.'One thing we should also know is that these athletes at times choose to participate in major grand prix or tournaments before major competitions like the Olympics because they want to win the cash prizes attached to such competitions. So it may be difficult to stop them.
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