\u00adThe Minister of Sports Development, John Owan Enoh has commended the National Assembly for the accelerated passage of the National Anti-Doping Bill.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Sunday, the minister also acknowledged and saluted President Bola Tinubu\u2019s vision for placing a premium on the transmission of the bill to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe transmission of the Anti-doping Bill 2024 to the National Assembly and the accelerated passage of same remains a landmark achievement of this administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a show of the courageous and bold leadership of the president, a final and appropriate response to the perennial issues of doping that have characterised Nigeria\u2019s relationship with the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The minister noted that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had threatened to ban Nigeria from international competitions because of Nigeria\u2019s inability to domesticate the national anti-doping law, among other non-compliant issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis administration was greeted with WADA issuing a notice to ban Nigeria from international competitions, which degenerated to the point that the agency took Nigeria to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). Amidst other non-compliant issues, the main challenge was Nigeria\u2019s inability to domesticate the National Anti-doping Law and set up a National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) as part of its obligation, having signed the international convention in 1999.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, the country has grappled with meeting up to the expectations of the World Anti-Doping Organisation, despite being a foundational signatory for 25 years,\u201d Mr Enoh said.<\/p>\n
He expressed optimism that with the passage of the bill, Nigeria will no longer have doubts about its participation in global sporting events and its eligibility to host sports competitions, amongst other perennial issues.<\/p>\n
This development comes weeks before the country\u2019s participation in the Paris Olympic Games. The bill, among other things, also seeks to establish the National Anti-Doping Centre to combat doping in sports in compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code.<\/p>\n
The Code is a core document that provides the framework for anti-doping policies, rules, and regulations within sports organisations and among public authorities. It is designed to harmonise anti-doping policies and ensure the same standards are applied to all athletes.<\/p>\n
The executive bill, which now makes it incumbent for Nigeria to domesticate the treaty to tackle the ugly menace of doping amongst sportsmen and women, was read for the second time in May and has scaled the third reading.<\/p>\n
Mr Tinubu had urged the Senate to review and approve the bill. He argued that it would prohibit athletes from using substances that enhance their performance.<\/p>\n
He further emphasised that establishing the agency was essential for Nigeria to meet the standards outlined in the World Anti-Doping Code.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00adThe Minister of Sports Development, John Owan Enoh has commended the National Assembly for the accelerated passage of the National Anti-Doping Bill. In a statement on Sunday, the minister also acknowledged and saluted President Bola Tinubu\u2019s vision for placing a premium on the transmission of the bill to the National Assembly. \u201cThe transmission of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":34191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34192,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34190\/revisions\/34192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}