UPDATED: Nsekera Wants 'All United' Africa

(ATR) Lydia Nsekera is drawing on her experience of helping lead FIFA through reform to help usher in a similar era to ANOCA.

The IOC member from Burundi is one of three candidates for President of the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa at its Extraordinary General Assembly this November. She is running against Algerian NOC President Mustapha Berraf and Cameroon NOC President Hamad Kalkaba Malboum.

Former Botswana NOC PresidentNegroes Malealea Kgosietsile was confirmed to Around the Rings as an additional candidate for the ANOCA presidency. Candidates have until Oct. 28 to submit paperwork to run for the position. The approved list of candidates will be finalized on Oct. 29.

"If I chose the slogan "All United for a Stronger Africa" for my campaign, it is not a coincidence!" Nsekera said to ATR by email. "I have noticed that unfortunately the continent is very divided, which prevents its members from dealing with the real problems. It is therefore very urgent to recreate this lost unity so that we can jointly develop the sport and ANOCA instead of spending time resolving conflicts."

Nsekera’s campaign centers around three priorities: resolving governance issues within ANOCA, making sure African athletes are better supervised and supported, and leveraging ANOCA’s brand and the African Games. Another key priority is supporting organizers in Senegal to ensure a top quality Youth Olympic Games in Dakar in 2022.

ANOCA was compelled by CAS to hold its elections again after a ruling that the elections at the 2017 General Assembly were invalid.

At the 2017 Assembly, challenger candidate Malboum was barred from running on the eve of the election. The ANOCA Executive Board said that he had used government funds to campaign against incumbent Lassana Palenfo.

Last minute evidence was used to bar Malboum, and lack of an Ethics Committee complicated matters. The IOC Executive Board had weighed in on the situation unbeknownst to the ANOCA General Assembly. Djibouti IOC member Aicha Garad Ali wrote to all members of ANOCA to hold an extraordinary assembly at the 2017 Association of National Olympic Committees meeting in Prague, Czech Republic.

At that assembly, African sport leaders struck a compromise. Palenfo would stay as president through the CAS appeal, but the executive board would run the day to day activities of ANOCA. Following Malboum’s successful appeal, Palenfo stepped down and said he would not run again.

ANOCA will now hold an Extraordinary General Assembly on the sidelines of the 2018 ANOC General Assembly in Tokyo to hold new presidential elections.

Nsekera says that her successful career as a "multi-level" sport administrator in both football and the IOC makes her the right choice to lead ANOCA through its crisis.

She said that she has helped oversee governance cleanups at both the Burundi Football Association and in FIFA during its current reforms, which are relevant today in Africa. Additional reforms have been taken at the Burundi NOC, which Nsekera says is just another example of the leadership she could provide.

"All this makes me the best candidate for the presidency of ANOCA," Nsekera said. "It is enough to have the will and the courage to change things and [in this case] the results are there!"

Even with the current issues facing ANOCA at this juncture, Nsekera believes the future of African sport is bright. On top of the 2022 YOG, the 2019 African Games are still scheduled to be held in Morocco, and more top level sporting events are coming to the continent.

"We have a rich continent in its diversity with enormous potential; a continent with the largest number of young people," Nsekera said. "We must harness this potential and develop a strategy that puts our organization on the scale of major sports organizations."

Homepage photo: FIFA.com

Written by Aaron Bauer

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