The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has issued a formal queried to the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) following discrepancies in the ages of four Nigerian athletes who are eligible to compete in August’s World U20 Championships in Lima, Peru.
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“Discrepancies concerning the date of birth (DOB) for at least four Nigerian athletes have been identified,” the AIU stated. “These athletes have at least two, and occasionally three or more, different DOBs that have been used to enter competitions at different times,” the organization added.
The organization tasked with upholding sporting integrity declared, “It was not aware of any reason why these athletes appear to have multiple, completely different DOBs.”
Furthermore, it’s unclear if the athletes’ provided identity documents (passports) are authentic or have been tampered with or fabricated.
The AFN was given until Friday, June 21, 2024, to respond to a question in a letter dated June 7, 2024, sent to Tonobok Ojuru Okowa, President, and Rita Moshindi, Secretary General, of the AFN, and signed by Brett Clothier, Head of the Athletics Integrity Unit.
The AIU demanded from the AFN to submit, inter-alia, the athletes current passport, all previous passports, birth certificate, national ID card, documents submitted in support of passport applications, medical records, including hospitalization records, dental records, vaccination records as well as education records including matriculation records, school end-of-term/year reports ad school examination results among others.
The AFN was also expected to have furnished the AIU with any correspondence between the athlete and the federation regarding their date of birth.
One of the athletes is male and was a double champion in the U18 category at the African U18/U20 Championships last year in Ndola, Zambia while the remaining three are females viz a sprinter, an hurdler and a long/triple jumper.
One of the female athletes had three different dates of birth while the male had a 2004 and a 2006 dates of birth.
Two of the athletes had different dates of birth in the AFN entry list for two of the federation’s competitions (in 2019 and 2021) but were registered by the federation with another dates of birth for the African U18/U20 championships in 2023.
