……Set to take their case to the World, Africa Bodies and IOC
By Martin Odiete, Abuja
The President of the Nigerian Badminton Federation, Francis Orbih is still very bitter over the attitude and antics displayed by the Egyptian Embassy when they refused to issue visas to their Athletes billed to participate at the recently concluded All Africa Senior Badminton Championship in Egypt, wondering why they accepted to host the event when they knew they would not be ready to issue visas to participating teams.
In an exclusive chart with www.theajasanews.com, Orbih out rightly blamed the Egyptian Embassy for the failure of his Athletes to pick the automatic ticket for the Tokyo Olympics, maintaining that his players were traumatized because of what they went through in securing the visas to travel to Egypt, and also arriving the country few hours to the commencement of their first game.
Orbih stressed that he is still waiting for the Egyptian Embassy to give them the reasons why they were refused visas “The most troubling aspect of the whole thing is that till this moment they have not come out to tell us why they didn’t give us visas. At least if you are refusing us visa, at least tell give us reason. They didn’t give us reason. Now you are hosting, they bided to host and it was granted, so government must be aware of it. Last year, our players were in Egypt for the International, it took us three days. We submitted out passports on the 28 of January, that is ten days or so before the date we were meant to depart they did not give us the visa until after that day.
“It was obvious that they did not want us to come. It is very obvious that it was deliberate, it was planned and we are calling out on the Egyptian Embassy, they should tell us and tell Nigerians why they refused to give us visas. We are writing a protest to the World body and we will cope the African body and the IOC. Everybody says, oh it is the usual practice, the Arab countries, it is the North Africans, this is what they do. It is unacceptable and we cannot continue to encourage it. So, we are going to protest and protest very loud,”
The Nigerian Badminton President also explained the efforts made by the sports ministry to solve the logjam as at then, “Because we did not think we were going to have an issue with the visa, we actually did not go through the Note Verbal process which also will take a while. We felt we normally get the Egyptian visa in three days and we submitted far early enough. But when we were now having problems, we called on the Ministry and before they eventually issued that visa I know that the Perm Sec and the minister got personally involved and they tried to fast track a Note Verbal to be issued for the team so that go to the Embassy, though some people told us they would still have refused to give us visa. But at the end of the day they were happy, I kept briefing them and they got to know when we received the visas.
“So now, I will be briefing the minister of our decision to the world body and we will carry the ministry along. So far they have given to us the support and backing. The minister actually told us they had similar problem with the Egyptian Embassy in November. I don’t know which particular sports it was, but it was this same kind of thing, the Embassy frustrated them seriously. So, I think it is something that needs to be taking up at the diplomatic level.
Having missed the opportunity in Egypt, Orbih explained other windows they are exploring to ensure that the players secure the Olympics qualification, “I will tell you something, the All Africa senior was the biggest qualifiers on the continent, so we were meant to go there and win our event, especially for our Athletes who were involved in the Road to Tokyo program. That we could not win, yes we got to the final, but like I said for Docas because the gap between her and the next person was so much and that she did not win had very little impact. So she is still comfortable, but for the other two it is very tight. So, because of that now we are in Kenya, we are in Uganda, this week and week, and then when they come back we intend to go to Malaysia, Singapore and France. Those are the three Super Series we want to go and if we are lucky, the points we gather from there will be enough for the men’s double to qualify for the Olympics,” He concluded.
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