AFN Submitted Visa Applications Late For World Relays, Says Chinese Embassy In Nigeria
The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria has revealed that the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN, submitted late the visa applications for the 2025 World Athletics Relays which started Saturday in Guangzhou, China.
Yang Jianxing, the Cultural Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, told Premium Times that the ‘Embassy acted swiftly within its procedural constraints once the Nigerian delegation submitted all the required documentation, but the applications were received late, and the time available for processing was extremely limited.’
‘We normally require a minimum of five working days to process and inspect visa applications. Unfortunately, due to the May Day holiday from 1-5 May, we lost valuable processing time,’ Yang told Premium Times.
He also revealed that ‘nine Nigerian delegation members were intended to travel, but after document review, only seven had complete and acceptable applications.’
‘We released the visas for the seven at 5:10 p.m., and their flight was at around 9 p.m. I think, or earlier. The time was extremely tight, but we did everything we could to fast-track the process,’ he further told the online news medium and revealed that ‘if the documents had arrived before the May Day holiday, the situation would have been different’
Yang’s revelation contradicts that of the AFN who, in a statement said it started visa processing since February ostensibly without names and officials for the competition as World Athletics only released the final entry for Nigeria and indeed all participating countries on April 25, 2025.
The revelation also revealed that the documents may have been submitted after May 5 and not before as the Chinese holiday ran from May 1-5, 2025.
Athletics stakeholders are wondering why the Federation could not submit all necessary documents even before the final entry was released by World Athletics on April 25 since the Federation would have known the athletes it intended to register for the competition as early as early April when the outdoor season began.
The AFN is known for committing such and related blunders and stakeholders readily point to how 10 Nigerian athletes were disqualified from representing Nigeria at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 over non-compliance with out-of-competition doping test rules.
Favour Ofili, a victim of the Tokyo Olympics maladministration and incompetence, was also a victim three years later at the Paris 2024 Olympics when she was not registered for the 100m event at the Olympics.
Two principal officials of the AFN, Rita Mosindi (former Secretary General) and Samuel Onikeku (head of technical subcommittee) were indicted by an investigative panel set up by the former Sports Minister for the Ofiligate.
Two months ago, only one Nigerian athlete competed at the World Indoor Championships despite the AFN registering more than eight due to confusing and complicated travel plans as well as communication gap with the athletes.
