ABUJA, Nigeria — Favour Ofili, one of Nigeria’s most promising young sprinters, has officially switched her international allegiance to Turkey, citing years of mishandling and neglect by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
According to sources at TVJ Newscentre and confirmed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the 22-year-old speedster initiated the transfer process on Saturday, May 31, 2025, following what she described as repeated failures by the Nigerian sports authorities that derailed her Olympic dreams.
Ofili, who boasts personal bests of 10.93 seconds in the 100m and 21.96 seconds in the 200m, had qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics in both events.
However, only her 200m entry was processed by the AFN, and she was left out of the 100m event despite hitting the qualification standard.
She went on to finish 6th in the 200m final, a strong performance that further spotlighted the cost of the administrative error.
This marks the second Olympic cycle where Ofili’s ambitions were thwarted by her own federation.
In 2021, she missed the Tokyo Olympics due to the AFN and Nigeria’s Anti-Doping Committee (NADC) failing to confirm her mandatory doping tests—a fiasco that disqualified 13 Nigerian athletes in total.
Sources close to the athlete told the AIU that her decision was not financially motivated, but rather born out of deep frustration with the recurring negligence.
Ofili reportedly expressed her sentiments directly to the AIU, explaining that her confidence in Nigeria’s athletics leadership had eroded after years of disillusionment.
In a twist that further cemented her decision, the same leadership of the AFN implicated in her Olympic exclusions was re-elected in June 2025, weeks after she began her transfer process.
Ofili, a former NCAA standout for LSU and a multiple-time national champion, was seen as the future of Nigerian sprinting alongside fellow starlets like Tobi Amusan and Rosemary Chukwuma.
Her departure is not just symbolic—it is a stark warning sign for Nigeria’s sporting ecosystem, which continues to hemorrhage elite talent due to administrative lapses.
