{"id":165374,"date":"2025-06-03T12:04:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T11:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes"},"modified":"2025-06-03T13:10:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:10:37","slug":"postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes","title":{"rendered":"Postpone AFN election over death of 22 Kano athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Following the fatal road accident which claimed 22 athletes and officials from Kano State, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, a candidate for the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) elections, has called for an immediate halt to the election process.<\/p>\n<p>The accident occurred on Saturday as the Kano State team returned from the 2024 National Sports Festival in Ogun State, resulting in the death of 22 athletes and staff.<\/p>\n<p>Describing the loss as a tragic national loss, Gombe argued that the elections were previously postponed due to the National Sports Festival, continuing now would be a \u201clack of sympathy towards the victims and their families.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is both insensitive and unjustified to proceed with the elections so soon after such a horrific loss,\u201d he stated, reacting to an AFN election announcement released barely 24 hours after the crash.<\/p>\n<p>He called on the National Sports Commission (NSC) to suspend the elections until after the normal seven-day Islamic mourning period.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government must act to halt the electoral process, at least until the official mourning period, which according to Islamic tradition is seven days, has passed,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Following the fatal road accident which claimed 22 athletes and officials from Kano State, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, a candidate for the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) elections, has called for an immediate halt to the election process. The accident occurred on Saturday as the Kano State team returned from the 2024 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":165373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[17584,289,17619,254],"class_list":["post-165374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-22-kano-athletes","tag-accident","tag-afn","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Postpone AFN election over death of 22 Kano athletes - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Following the fatal road accident which claimed 22 athletes and officials from Kano State, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, a c ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Postpone AFN election over death of 22 Kano athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following the fatal road accident which claimed 22 athletes and officials from Kano State, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, a c ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-03T11:04:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-03T12:10:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/sm_1748940083.025984.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"411\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Postpone AFN election over death of 22 Kano athletes\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-03T11:04:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-03T12:10:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes\"},\"wordCount\":200,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/sm_1748940083.025984.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"22 Kano athletes\",\"Accident\",\"AFN\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/postpone-afn-election-over-death-of-22-kano-athletes\",\"name\":\"Postpone AFN election over death of 22 Kano athletes - 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