Sports Minister and chairman of the National Sports Commission, Dr Tammy Danagogo has said that heads will roll over teenage Weightlifter Chika Amalaha who was stripped of his gold medal after committing an anti-doping violation at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Speaking to journalists in Glasgow, Daanagogo said, ‘’My heart bleeds for this 16-year-old girl. She looks too innocent to commit such an offence. She is naive. It’s so unfortunate because it was this same girl that did so well in Gabrone, Botswana. And she was tested and was certified clean. We must get to the roots of this and the coaches, and our anti-doping officials have questions to answer. Why didn’t they do their job before coming here to disgrace Nigeria?
‘’For a young girl like this, we had good plans for her. She is still in shock over what happened to her. She ignorantly took what she took for weight reduction. It is devastating to me and definitely we’ll look at the level of involvement of her coaches, officials, crew and our anti-doping officials. They ought to have detected this before coming to disgrace Nigeria here.
“It’s disappointing that we have highly placed anti-doping officials who did not do their jobs. It is embarrassing and severe punishments will be meted to those officials either for their involvements or negligence as a deterrent. This disgrace is not only on one girl but on the whole of the contingent and the nation. Enough is enough.”
Danagogog however, re-assured Team Nigeria contingent that President Goodluck Jonathan would nevertheless roll out the red carpets to honour the deserving athletes who have done well for their fatherland.
