Illegal drug use: Blessing Okagbare’s sister speaks, calls AFN big liars

Grace Okagbare, elder sister of embattled Nigerian athlete, Blessing Okagbare, has said no official from the Ministry of Sports has reached out to the sprint star, stating that all that is been reported about her sister are ‘fabricated and unfounded lies to tarnish her image’. She said since the Tokyo Games, the Athletics Integrity Units, AIU had not said ‘anything new about the case or invite her to hear her side of the story’.

She made this known in a statement she signed, entitled, ‘The many Lies of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria regarding Blessing Okagbare Tokyo 2020 Olympics Ordeal’.

According to her, AFN is trying to force her to agree to what she didn’t do, and she has vehemently refused and is prepared to go to court for proper redress.

“I am sincerely disappointed that since after the ordeals of Queen B. Okagbare, my kid sister and Africa’s Queen of the tracks during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics games, no official from the Ministry of Sports has reached out to her.

“Instead, what we are seeing in the media space is fabricated and unfounded lies to tarnish her image. This is sad and preposterous.

“A former sports Minister who is supposed to be a father figure to take up her case has rather failed woefully in all ramifications instead he’s going about running his mouth that he knew who gave drugs to Blessing.

“Blessing Okagbare believes that since she has been standing against the ills in the Sports Ministry, she is now a target. And they are hell-bent on tarnishing her image.

“They have fruitlessly tried to force her to own up and accept what she didn’t do and she won’t.

“How can she cooperate or succumb to their whims and caprices when she hasn’t been to court for once since the incident happened?

“Up till date she hasn’t been called for the hearing of the case, but the idiots are spreading lies that she refused to cooperate with them, last month they came out with their usual propaganda that she has been banned.

“I believe there’s something they are either hiding or trying to cover up in this whole ordeal.

“For Okagbare to be ignored since after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, goes to show that government officials and sports administrators, deliberately hell-bent on tarnishing her image and want her career to go down,” the statement reads in part.