Ajunwa wants total overhaul of the Sports Ministry after Paris 2024 Olympics misadventure

Atlanta Olympics long jump champion, Chioma Ajunwa wants the whole of the Federal Ministry of Sports Development to be overhauled following Nigeria’s disastrous outing at the Paris 2024 Olympics that gulped over nine billion naira of taxpayers’ money.

Ajunwa said this in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, insisting square pegs should be put in square holes.

‘One thing those at the helm of affairs should do is to overhaul the sport ministry in Nigeria, they should stop recycling the old administrative officers that do not know what they are doing.

‘When you put someone who knows his or her onions in a position, we will not be speaking in this manner, when you appoint someone who has the love, passion and the zeal of the office where he works, he will know what to do at a particular given time because the passion is there.

‘The beginning of our problem is we appoint people who do not know what sport is into such positions, people who have never had anything to do with sport in their lives,’ said Ajunwa who made history as the first and only individual Olympic gold medalist for Nigeria.

Ajunwa who also won a World indoor silver for Nigeria in the long jump said it is disheartening that Nigeria will be talking about going back to the drawing board after failing to do the right thing.

‘It is quite disheartening that every year, Nigeria will be telling this kind of story. If you could remember, after the last Olympics before this, it was still the same thing and they will keep telling us let them go back to the drawing board, the drawing board we have never seen, and we do not know how to draw on the board.

‘It is quite unfortunate that we lost the whole chances, and the athletes wasted their time, their energy, their own personal resources and it is quite unfortunate that Nigeria spent so much but that is not my business because we don’t spend that money when we are supposed to spend it,’ she added.