Technical Director of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Sunday Adeleye has revealed that both the Athletics Federation and the Ministry of Sports are working to ensure that the 13,000 dollar scandal is resolved, and Nigeria does not get banned by the IAAF.

The threat was documented in a letter addressed to the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), in which IAAF gave a two-week ultimatum for the AFN to refund the sum of $130,000 it was paid in error to support a competition hosted by Nigeria in 2017.

In the letter, IAAF said the AFN was contacted immediately the anomaly was noticed on March 18, 2017, to refund the sum, but instead of repaying the money, local officials have been trading blames and refusing to speak on the matter.

Speaking with www.brila.net, Adeleye further stated that getting the hammer from the IAAF would render the AFN efforts to prepare athletes uselessly.

“Am sure the Ministry of Youths and Sports is actually working on it so that the sledge hammer would not fall on Nigeria because we have worked hard as a federation to prepare and bring our athletes together and you will agree that the performance of Nigerian athletes in on the rise right now”.

“If we get that sledge hammer, what would you think would happen to our efforts?

“We are not happy with the whole situation which I believe would be resolved soon, we have sent a mail to the Ministry and the president has been following up since he returned from Japan.

“Hopefully before the expiration of the timeline we got, the Ministry would have rectified and resolved the issue”, he concluded.