(PM News) — Fifty four athletes and 10 officials will fly the colours of Nigeria at the African Athletics Championship in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The African meet holds from tomorrow, Wednesday 30 April to 4 May, 2008.

Some of the athletes and officials left for Addis Abba, venue of the competition yesterday. They will be joined by their foreign-based counterparts before the commencement of the championship tomorrow.

Sunday Bada, the Technical Director of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) said he is expecting good a good outing from the contingent at the end of the tournament on Sunday.

Meanwhile, corporate organisations in the country have once again come under the hammer, following their apathy towards sports development. The latest swipe came from Bada, who said in an interview with brilafm that it is odd that companies and corporations are yet to support various sporting associations in an Olympics year.

He noted that the federations are groaning under financial constraints in preparing teams for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, while the business sector is not lending a hand.

“It’s such a really bizarre situation that companies and multi-nationals in this country are still not coming out to support sports, not even in this year of the Olympics.

“Normally, one would have thought that the companies would have used the opportunity to cash in on the milage they are bound to get from supporting associations for the Olympics.

“Lavish attention should be coming for sports at a time like this, but we are facing a different situation. It’s very strange and rather discouraging,” he lamented.

The AFN performance director stated further that countries like Bahamas and Jamaica are doing well in the Olympics because they are serious in their approach to development.

“It’s such issues like development and funding that we are facing. We intend to face them squarely and confront them, as we march towards the Olympics in China,” he declared emphatically.