The Nigerian Government on Tuesday accused the Spanish Embassy of lying in an attempt to explain why it denied Nigeria’s U-17 female basketball team visas to play in the world championship tournament in Zaragoza.
Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung, who spoke to journalists at the Presidential Villa said the decision of the Nigerian government to to protests the visa denial was after a thorough investigation which showed most of the allegations by the Spanish government was false.
Dalung said he had already formally sent Nigeria’s protest letter to Spain’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Alfonso Barnuevo, in Abuja, before proceeding to the Presidential Villa to see President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Federal Government, he said has also demanded a redress although the tournament has already kicked off adding that such a development could not be ignored as host nations that feel threatened by Nigeria’s prospects to May use the same device to thwart her teams by also adenying them visas.
The championship for which the team was to attend kicked off on the 21st of June without the Nigerian team after qualifying from Africa zone in Madagascar.
According to him: “Our under 17 female basket ball team qualified in Madagascar for the Spain event but sadly after fulfilling all righteousness of visa requirement even extra ordinary conditions were introduced by Spain our federation met all but at the dying minute they were denied visa.
“Before I came to the State House, I was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to protest the treatment given to Nigeria, I had to really investigate more because the reasons given by the embassy of Spain is that one, the letter signed requesting for visa was signed by a dead person, I had to today invite the author of the letter to come to my office and he is a living person.
“The second reason was that the lists sent was padded and that there was an attempt to smuggle some people and traffic them across the border. The lists that was brought to me today which I still have it here is not up to 18 (officials and team members) and these were the people that went to Madagascar for competition and there was nothing like padding in it.
“The last reason was that it was out of time or it was brought in short notice, this one too did not stand the test of the investigation I did. This is why we have protested officially to the embassy and I have written the international federation on the treatment they gave to us, I guess it will not take too long we still insists on getting visa from Spain for our athletes to go and participate because if we allow this to go on then we are opening the gate for other countries to use this technique of disqualifying Nigeria when they feel we are going to be a threat in any international participation”.
Dalung said Nigeria would be participating in only eight sports at Rio Olympics because it wants to send athletes to compete in only games that there are genuine chances of winning medals, instead of embarking on another jamboree that the 2012 London Olympics turned out to be.
Speaking on the selection of coaches for the super eagles, Dalong said his ministry only supervises the process and also plays the role of guiding the process to get the best for Nigeria.
According to him, he has always maintained that if we cannot pay indigenous coaches whom they still owe some months of salaries with some of them dying in the process without their salaries there was no need to look for a foreign coach.
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