Some six months after Nigeria lost fast-rising sprinter Favour Ofili to the warm hands of Turkey over the administrative negligence of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), another promising athlete, Favour Ashe, has decamped, this time to Qatar, a central country in the Gulf region where it is overflowing with milk and honey for embittered athletes. 

The story of Ofili’s decamp to Turkey is now an open secret, one that has been overbeaten in the media with little to no consequences meted out to the administrators who sabotaged the country’s future by failing one of its brightest prospects, not once, but twice. Instead, these administrators, particularly the overarching National Sports Commission, appear to be out for Ofili’s blood. According to multiple reports, the NSC has petitioned the governing body, World Athletics, to block the move on the grounds that they paid training grants to the athlete last year. The veracity of that claim is still up in the air, but the intent of the move appears to be to ensure that Ofili, who has declared her allegiance to Turkey in no uncertain terms, either flies Nigeria’s flag at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics or misses representing Turkey.

SPORTS: The Nigerian National Sports Commission has started moves to block Favour Ofili from representing Türkiye at the 2028 LA Olympics.

According a top NSC official, Favour was among the elite athletes who received training grants in 2025. As a result, the NSC is seeking to… pic.twitter.com/g5lQn7zVfL

— 49th. (@the49thstreet) February 19, 2026

For the newly decamped Favour Ashe, the reason behind his decision, is no mystery: the sprinter has had enough of Nigeria’s limiting athletic environment and has opted for Qatar’s more affable system, where he has spent the last five months. He is reportedly with some unnamed Nigerian athletes who are also primed to complete a nationality switch. “The Qatar federation is taking us to South Africa to begin our season there. This is something Nigeria will never do,” Ashe said. “There are many young Nigerians in the Qatari team training for the Olympics, and they are well catered for.”

As of the time of writing, Ashe’s profile with the World Athletics body still reflects Nigeria, and there has been no official confirmation of approval from the Nationality Review Panel about his switch or that of the other Nigerian athletes he referenced. However, under the current rules, athletes are subjected to a three-year waiting period from their last appearance for a nation before being cleared to compete for another country. The only exception is for “exceptional circumstances” such as administrative negligence, a loophole that Nigerian athletes are ironically, and unfortunately, well-positioned to argue.

Before the popular case of the Favours, sprinter Saeed Salam, formerly Sunday Akintan, has been a recurring name in the corridors of nationality switches over the past two years. After claiming medals at the 2022 Asaba National Sports Festival as a 100m and 200m medallist, there were reports of Salam decamping to Qatar. However, the Nigerian-born sprinter denied the claims, even though he had been missing from the Nigerian domestic circuit and any international race until May 2025, when he competed at the Doha Diamond League pre-programme 100m invitational under a new name. All signs point to a developing confirmation of the switch, likely to be made official as soon as the three-year waiting period is completed.

Whatever the individual calculus and how it was executed, the gulf between how Nigeria invests in sports compared to other progressive climes is not contestable. If football, the country’s undisputed number one sport, is lagging in virtually all relevant developmental metrics, including infrastructure and personnel welfare (the country’s flagship team, the Super Eagles, still protested owed bonuses before and during the last AFCON), one can only imagine the reality of athletes in fringe disciplines. We have seen athletes compete in darkness after a power failure at the MKO Abiola Stadium during the 2025 National Sports Festival. Thanks to Tobi Amusan’s expose, we have also seen the embarrassing tournament kits handed to Nigerian athletes, starkly inferior to those of their foreign counterparts. We have seen the AFN sabotage its own athletes countless times on the world stage with no consequences, leaving the very athletes it failed to shoulder the damage.

Stadium Lights Go Off During 10,000m Final at National Sports Festival.

Athletes were forced to run in the dark during the 10,000m final. This is unacceptable in 2025.

Those responsible must be held accountable — such negligence has no place at the National Sports Festival. pic.twitter.com/AAnG9K8nmt

— Dr. Victor Ademola (@AdemolaVictorTv) May 24, 2025

Nigeria’s disaster at the 2024 Paris Olympics remains one of the country’s darkest moments on the global stage, where it returned from the Games without winning a single medal. While the country’s flag was dragged through the mud, made no better by the AFN and the Nigerian Olympic Committee (NOC) mishandling of Team Nigeria, including the infamous Ofili case and that of stranded Nigerian cyclist Ese Ukpeseraye borrowing a bicycle from her German counterparts, some Nigerians did, in fact, win medals representing other countries. Take, for instance, Ohio-born Annette Echikunwoke, who won a silver medal with the United States in the women’s hammer throw. Annette was primed to represent Nigeria at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, having performed well at the Nigerian Olympic trials. But with the AFN’s failure to conduct proper drug tests and whereabouts checks, she was disqualified from participating in the Games. Similarly, Salwa Eid Naser won silver for Bahrain in the women’s 400 metres. Born to a Nigerian mother and formerly Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu, Salwa had represented Nigeria in the early stages of her career before switching allegiance to Bahrain in 2014.

Nigerian-born Annette Echikunwoke, who was supposed to represent Nigeria at the last Olympics Games in Tokyo, but couldn’t due to technical issues, went ahead to represent USA in this year’s Olympics in Paris.

She won the sliver medal which is the first medal for USA in women’s… pic.twitter.com/kjXYc2m5MH

— Olawale Ayeni (@VjWale) August 6, 2024

There is hardly any country that has given its athletes more than enough reason to give up on it than Nigeria has. And this is hardly a contemporary issue. Looking back, athletes like Francis Obikwelu and Femi Ogunode went on to maximise their full potential after they severed professional ties with the country. Ogunode, for instance, was similarly sabotaged on the world stage after being left unregistered for an international competition he qualified for, but later became the fastest Asian man after switching to Qatar. On the other hand, Obikwelu, the Nigerian prodigy who set a 200m national record of 19.84 at the 1999 World Championships in Seville, was abandoned after a career-threatening injury. Thank goodness Portugal came to his rescue, and he went on to win the country’s first-ever Olympic sprinting medal in athletics.

Essentially, the truth is that Nigeria hardly deserves any allegiance. Not when it contributes little to nothing in terms of athlete development, or even maintaining the growth of its talents. It is one thing to be financially disadvantaged (if that is even a tenable excuse) against high-spending countries like the Gulf nations or the United States. It is another entirely to show zero institutional interest in advancing the growth of track and field by investing next to nothing in infrastructure, talent development, and talent welfare.

There is no incentive for any athlete with other options to stay committed to Nigeria. And while the likes of Tobi Amusan, Ese Brume, Kayinsola Ajayi and others are still flying the country’s flag high whenever they get the chance, one can hardly fault those who have called it quits. Not when they have been first-hand victims of representing Nigeria. Not when the future looks gloomier than the past and present. Not when there are readily available options prepared to offer them some reprieve. Not when their future is on the line.