The Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports Development has announced the deployment of Adisa Beyioku as the new Secretary-General at the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).

The ministry, in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, said Beyioku replaces Elijah Ademu who has been recalled to the headquarters.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ademu was recalled following the report of an Advisory Committee on Team Nigeria’s poor performance at the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships.

The report on the championships held in Doha, Qatar had indicted some AFN officials, including AFN Board member Sunday Adeleye, saying they shoddily handled the Federation’s affairs.

Beyioku, who was born on Feb. 7 in 1975 at Ilorin in Kwara, is an accomplished sports administrator who is an indigene of Oyo State.

He had his primary school education at Masifa District Primary School in Ogbomoso from 1980 to 1985 and his secondary school education at Ogbomoso Grammar School from 1985 to 1989.

The new AFN Secretary-General obtained his first major educational qualification — Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer Science — at the Kwara State Polytechnic in Ilorin in 1996.

Beyioku went on to join the then Federal Ministry of Sports and Social Development in Lagos for his NYSC programme from 1997 to 1998.

It was therefore befitting that he was employed by the Ministry in January 1999 as a Sports Officer II and deployed to its Port Harcourt Zonal Headquarters.

Several months later in November, he was redeployed to the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) in Lagos as an Assistant Secretary-General.

He was there till 2002 and gained valuable experience working at the Secretariat under the likes of Tayo Oreweme, Maria Wophil and Caleb Gidado.

The experience served him in good stead when he led Team Nigeria to the 2001 World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada.

He led the likes of the now late Sunday Bada, Chioma Ajunwa and Falilat Ogunkoya as members of a glorious team which set several records.

After working with the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) from 2002 to 2003, he moved to the Nigeria Rugby Football Federation (NRFF) as Secretary-General in 2003.

Beyioku was at NRFF till 2012, a period during which he obtained by 2005 his Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree in Human Kinetics at the University of Ibadan.

By 2007, he had also obtained his Post-Graduate Diploma in Edication (PGDE) at the University of Ado-Ekiti.

He worked with the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF) from 2012 to 2017, before being moved to FEAD in the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development’s headquarters in Abuja.

As an Assistant Director (Sports), Beyioku who is married and blessed with a girl and a boy was overseeing 34 national sports federations in the area of local competitions.

Before his new appointment, he had moved on to being in charge of the Elite Athletes Unit at FEAD, overseeing participation in international competitions by the national federations.