These are interesting times for sports, with Minister Solomon Dalung ready to accept blames, where it concerns his ministry. Dalung is also prepared to mediate in controversies, except that he prefers political resolutions instead of outright decisions, even where the extant rules provide for them. Dalung’s mien could be deceitful, but he showed that he knew his onions as a lawyer, preferring to see NFF’s decision to inform FIFA chiefs about the crisis as an affront to constituted authority, since the Constitution is incontrovertible. For Dalung, it is the law or nothing.
Not so, sports minister sir, especially with FIFA’s rules which state the process to follow for aggrieved people. Thankfully, the Giwa group has taken their case to the Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS). In the eyes of FIFA, Giwa’s case is dead and should remain so, if we don’t want to get banned and become a pariah nation.
It is easy for people to say to ‘hell with FIFA.’ But those in this school must understand that the cheapest sport to run in the country is football. Indeed, the first thing that most kids learn to do is to kick around objects in the house. Therefore, if FIFA bans Nigeria (God forbid), all forms of soccer competitions would be null and void; no referee would be allowed to handle those matches, the results will not be recognised and no country would invite us for games. We would be out of all competitions. Did I hear you say, so what? Interesting! Our players and indeed those who want to make a career out of the game would be forced to change their nationalities. They may not want to return to play for us again, knowing that our administrators don’t care about their future and have refused to respect rules which over 209 countries have accepted as the norm.
I pity boys such as Alex Iwobi, Victor Moses and Carl Ikeme, who shunned playing for England to wear our prestigious green-white-green jersey. They won’t have anywhere to go because England would dump them. Besides, only the exceptional ones, such as Kelechi Iheanacho, would get good football nations to adopt them. Others would be marooned, yet soccer is the biggest mobiliser of our youth at the grassroots. It also has given many boys a means of livelihood. Many of players, such as Nwankwo Kanu, Austin Okocha, George Finidi et al, have changed the fortunes of their families from near squalor to opulence and fame. Why do we want to lose all these simply because one man feels aggrieved, having flunked the chance to win the Warri Congress, after his major rival, Aminu Maigari, was cajoled by the government not to contest the elections?
Minister, sir, ask Giwa if FIFA did not annul his election. Didn’t the world body ask the NFF to set a new road map out of the impasse then? Is it not because of this road map that the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, prevailed on Maigari not to contest the Warri elections? Isn’t it because of this new road map that FIFA threw out the group’s protest? Can
the Giwa group give the minister CAS’ ruling on their case? Shouldn’t the minister be interested in reading CAS’s ruling? How many times would we opt for political resolutions to this impasse, with Giwa being the biggest beneficiary? Why didn’t Giwa et al go to Warri for the elections like some others?
Amaju Pinnick wasn’t in the race for the elections. He ought to have been the chairman of the electoral body, but many people kicked against his nomination for the job. Amaju only benefited from the lacuna created by Giwa’s refusal to be in Warri for the elections, after the former Secretary to the Government brokered a political solution to the impasse. With due respect, the Ibrahim Galadima-led reconciliatory committee should disband itself since what the Giwa group is asking for isn’t tenable in a democracy. They want to be given four offices by government fiat, rather than to contest for those positions in an election. Are we not in a democracy? Shouldn’t the Congress be allowed to choose those they want? I digress.
Dalung met with sports editors last week Friday in Lagos. He spent close to two hours stating his side to all the issues placed on his table. One wasn’t shocked at his oration. As a lawyer, it was expected. He laced his facts with idioms and laughed off the talk of him being a guerilla. As a Comrade, he likes to fight. He gives people the long end of the rope to pull. He told us he knew when to cut the rope. We hope so, going by the dead end we have found the NFF crises.
Dalung blamed Chris Giwa and Amaju Pinnick for not listening to his counsel on the matter. He posited that Giwa faulted Pinnick’s emergence in the Warri Congress, with a police report ordering that Shehu Dikko should be arrested during the Congress.
It is true sir that Aminu Maigari was arrested during the Abuja Congress, leading to the Congress members walking out of the voting centre in a solidarity protest. Dikko, didn’t show up in Warri; nor was he held in any police station like Maigari. Herein lies the difference, sir, in the two scenarios that appear the same for Giwa. They aren’t. In the case of the Abuja Congress, nothing happened again after Maigari’s arrest. Majority of the voters left the hall.
So, the first question that Dalung must ask Giwa is, who voted for him? The other one would be for the minister to ask Giwa, if it was fair to arrest one of the contestants to the NFF president’s position, who at that time was the incumbent? Would Giwa accept such a result, if he was in Maigari’s shoes? What happened at the Abuja Congress was a clear case of the government’s interference.
Can Giwa explain why three members of his group (Felix Anyansi-Agwu, Sharif Inuwa and Otunba Sunday Dele-Ajayi) which he wants to enthrone are in the current NFF board? Did these three men not swear to an affidavit that they didn’t contest the Abuja elections? Did they not send this document to FIFA? Can Giwa say that Farouk Yarma, Felix Obuah and Obinna Ogba are with him? Is it not also true that one member of his group also contested the Warri elections and lost? Is Giwa saying that the current Senate chairman of the chamber’s Sports Committee, Obinna Ogba, still attends meetings of his group? Does Ogba’s presence at all the meetings with the current NFF board, including the body’s last Congress, not suggest otherwise?
Dalung, sir, Nigerians would be excited to see Giwa’s members in a flawed election by FIFA, which is the body recognised to supervise its elections. Indeed, all Congresses, including the ones for elections, are recorded. Can Giwa show us the video evidence of the elections he wants us to believe he won? The Warri election was recorded and observed by FIFA chieftains, unlike the Abuja one which went ahead despite FIFA’s warning against it.
Honourable minister, sir, the Nigerian Constitution, which is binding on everyone, frowns against illegitimate acts. What happened in Abuja was laughable. Dalung needs to ask for the voters’ register to understand how grave some of the atrocities that he would find inside are. It would, therefore, be unfair for a body unrecognised by FIFA to negotiate any arrangement to accommodate new members into a body which emerged from elections. It’s unbelievable that the group wants the position of the vice chairman without going for an election. What happens to the incumbent Barrister Seyi Akinwunmi, who earned the spot through an election? Does the minister think Akinwunmi would accept to relinquish his position for a man who didn’t contest the election in the first instance? Do FIFA rules allow for such paddy paddy arrangement? Won’t the world laugh at us?
Dalung, sir, your argument that our Constitution is supreme isn’t in doubt. No one wants to challenge it. But with an organisation like FIFA, we reserve the right to respect its rules or quit. FIFA frowns at taking its matters to court. The reason is to forestall such occurrence like ours, where a man can seek a court’s intervention over trivial matters. This no-court rule seeks to protect football administrators from being removed from office at the whims and caprices of government officials. Perhaps if FIFA didn’t include this rule, Nigeria would have had over 40 NFF chairmen in four years – one NFF chairman after every defeat. Interestingly, on Thursday, Vanguard ran a story in which the Registrar of the Federal High Court, Jos, Chika Udenkwo, denied the claim by the Giwa group that the court sacked the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF board.
The newspaper quoted from a video message in which Udenkwo explained that the court order brought by the Giwa group said it was in respect of a motion on notice dated January 29, 2016 and filed on February 3, 2016. Udenkwo said that the motion prayed for three orders – extension of time to re-list, order to re-list and lastly restoration of all orders made.
According to the Vanguard report, Udenkwo said: “The court ruled for the extension of time within which to apply to re-list for hearing and determination of the suit together with all the motions pending, which were discontinued and struck out by the court on October 30, 2014.”
“He said the court also restored all orders made by it in 2014 in the suit brought by the Giwa group, stressing that there is no place in the order where the court removed Amaju Pinnick as the President of the Nigeria Football Federation,” Vanguard newspaper wrote, quoting Udenkwo.
“He added that the only controversy was an interim order in respect of a Motion Exparte brought by Obinna Ogba and Yahaya Adama for the Giwa group, restraining the third defendants who were Aminu Maigari, Musa Amadu as well as the executive committee of the then board and all the 36 state FAs, pending the determination of the motion on Notice,” according to the report.
“You can see from the ruling, there is no place in the ruling where the court mentioned Amaju Pinnick,” Udenkwo said.
So, who is fooling whom, honourable minister? We don’t need such people running our football. Controversies demean the federation and inhibit sponsorships from the private sector. We don’t need them; do we?
