Pius Oleh is one of us. What do we do with him?

Squatting from left Etim Esin, Dominic Iorfa, Pius Oleh, Dr Sam Okwaraji, Friday Ekpo, and Ademola Adeshina

Pius Oleh is definitely one of us. He played for the Super Eagles. He was Samson Siasia’a team mate and friend. He is a FIFA agent. To have been a FIFA agent, he would have worked hard enough. He would have invested so much on the endeavour. For any profit he makes as result, he would repatriate some portion back to Nigeria, at least, to his friends, family and other support lines. This he has to do for years to come.

Someone somewhere brought him into the current fray. It was obvious that he erred because he probably did not ask questions on how these things are done moreso, he has never done it before. Added to his inexperience is that we do not have a football institution in the country. Had we one, our own institution would have helped him to correct these things, do his work well and by now be smiling to the bank for a nice day’s job. Surely, some guys back in the NFA would have also smiled to the smiled to the bank because as it is usual their hands would have been greased.

Now, let us assume that the NFA (I have resolved on my own never to call them NFF again because even the ir supervising minister, Professor Taoheed Adedoja took his time in his second ministerial briefing to refuse to call them NFF but NFA.

Aminu Maigari’s board have wasted N70million tax payers’ money on the failed trip. It is clear with all intent and purposes that they knew what they were doing. They promised the nation that they were going to report the match agent to FIFA. It is clear that if they do and the match agent is found culpable, he may lose his FIFA license. Despondency has been gained back.

Despite all, the agent gave them an undertaking that he was going to pay them back all they’ve lost. I think, and seriously too, that we need to re-look at the whole matter carefully with our common and national interest as the lens.

We have nothing to gain ‘killing’ the man. We have everything to gain supporting him to do it again, better and recoup some lost funds. There is a simple concept I use in teaching in my MBA classes as a lecturer, never be afraid of making mistakes. Mistakes are human. I prefer a staff to take a wrong decision and correct same later than not take a decision.

I plead for Pius Oleh to be given what a social worker will call rehabilitative social support.

God help us here. My grounds? It is proven he had used his youth to play for this nation. It is our duty to help him recover and be a better and smarter business man in football management. His errors and mistakes in this Obama fiasco is also a fundamental admittance that we do not have a functional FA secretariat!

PROFESSOR ADEDOJA’S FAUX PAS:

No one can take it away from him, he is a suave speaker, eloquent deliverer of words, logical thinker but obviously one who has no institutional support. It is so sad we do not have institutions in our country. It is only structures and people we have. The man spoke about Dispute Resolution Committee to look into all matters of sports disputes in the nation including those of the NFA.

You will agree with me this is brilliant. You will also agree with me that committees by their nature are ad hoc. This is one important development that needs a permanent and lifelong function.

Had we people who can think like one of the guys in there whose nickname is ARMOURED TANK, the minister would have been told that what he was looking for in sokoto ( pronounced as sakwato) is just at the ebb of his sokoto (pronounced as sokotow).

His ministry does NOT have the powers to set up a lasting solution. Under his ministry is the National Olympic Committee (NOC). They own and have the powers. I pray the minister can goad them to in weeks complete the processes to initiate the moves and conclude the setting up of a NATIONAL SPORTS RESOLUTION CHAMBER. This done, they have the powers to order all sports matters in court to be withdrawn and taken to that chambers for resolution and from there appeals can go to Lausanne in Switzerland. This can be done and concluded in less than two weeks and yet the minister will have achieved his vision and aims.

 

NIGERIANS CALL FOR NFF BOARD TO RESIGN

President Goodluck Jonathan tired of the NFF?

The e-mail campaign which I am reliably informed is what FIFA and such institutions like our National Assembly will accept has been launched. Please spare a minute to sign and pass it unto all your friends in your e-mail. This board can be made to resign via a non-violent campaign like this. Please click: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?jyds14 and sign.

Andrew Ekejiuba: Dubious and corrupt leadership in the NFF is fast eroding the achievements we have recorded in the round leather game and we cannot fold our hands to let this stand, because we have many credible and transparent Nigerians who are ready to take our game to the next level but the cabals that are holding the game down will not let go. So the best we can do is to fight them headlong until they are no more!

Akintokunbo Adejumo:  Charlatans, mediocre, pretenders, incompetents, inefficient, ineffective, corrupt, selfish, greedy, ragamuffins, lacking vision and ideas, useless, obstinate, tyranical. What do you expect of such ilk?

Mike Simeon Enahoro: Some of us have the dignity to understand and know that things can be better and MUST be made better, if the right people are there. And you can ask Maigari himself, all of us have a life, and this football environment provides a great opportunity for this country to become a real power house in global sports... For an organisation (NFF) that is seeking a 6 Billion Naira annual funding, we have no chairpersons for any league competition in Nigeria, our coach just got paid (in arrears), we have spent 70 Million Naira on a jamboree to America (still waiting for the promoter to pay back), we've missed 2 international free days, have no year plan for football, are losing money on the promotion of our various national teams, have not finalized our sponsorship issues, and we are down to accepting peanuts from our jersey manufacturer, when Ghana and South Africa get twice of what we negotiated for!!!... You will not accept anything from anyone who has no business managing Nigerian football, and you will not wish it on anyone else. This is the 21st century.....This has got to stop in our country…

Chukwuemeka Anthony Medani : ....the call for the sacking of the so called NFF cannot be over-empahasized..Just this morning another spokesman to the NFF was on Brilla FM, he talked about giving Siasia a directive to invite only 22 players for the prosecution of the next qualifier against Ethiopia..and said sarcastically that they would then look into the list and sort it out..The question here is, who's in charge of the Super Eagles: the NFF or Siasia???

Ken Gadaffi: I am yet to see a Nigerian political leader quit honorably or when the ovation is loud. the problem is most of them simply don’t know their boundary. They know quite well they have nothing to offer yet they keep scrambling for public offices just because they can loot tax payers money. It is sickening to see the state of Nigerian Football just like many other aspects going from bad to worse daily. Its really time to rise up and put a stop.

Thanks

SAVE NIGERIAN FOOTBALL. JOIN 10,000 NIGERIANS ASKING THE NFF BOARD TO RESIGN

The people in Egypt did it. We can do it better. Football is a masses opium. Our current governors of the game have become violently dangerous to the good health of the game. We cannot continue to look at them the way they are going about the affairs of our commonwealth. It is our desire as a pressure group to ask that the Board of the NFF led by Alhaji Aminu Maigari should resign. If they refuse, we will head to the National Assembly. Thence, we shall seek the intervention of FIFA before we call for a state of emergency to be declared by the government.

My courage got bolstered when Mike Enahoro commented on the facebook page I opened for this purpose. Read him, “People all over the world are demanding better service of their leaders, and are standing up to be counted. In Nigeria, our siddon tight leaders have no idea what it means to serve, only to be served. The examples we see, of people in the middle east is an example. The only constituency that brings joy and passion, a semblance of a united front is our football (and national team sports). These bunch of "god father groomed" gangstas have to be booted out!!!!!! Now!!!! Lets copy the examples of people all over the world. We take a stand and we push and push until they go....... 10,000 members of this forum is the target...... Tell your friends, loved ones, and any one who cares, 10,000 of us must get behind this. Lets do something..... E no concern me, is not our portion..... 10,000 people on this forum in 100 days.... Lets get everyone on our contact list to sign up.... This is not about Maigari, it is not about Lulu or anyone else, but enuff is enuff.... We also cannot siddon look..... Do something... forward this message to all your contacts and insist they sign up. Today, we fight to save football, tomorrow, we fight to save our country..... Lets get 10,000 people to sign up within the next 100 days....”

We can do it. Sign up on the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/home.php?sk=group_108156685931654&ap=1

The website for this project will be on in a matter of hours. It is http://www.savenigerianfootball.com/?q=node

After day one on the facebook, I can announce to you that 282 people had signed up. We can. Spread the message. Sign up today and get five others to sign up. Our joy and game depends on this action.

MARTYRDOM VERSUS NATIONAL INTEREST

Maigari...running a script well

When General Olusegun Obasanjo became President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1999. His sponsors into the office tried breathing down his neck. The man stood his ground and squealed: I want to be my own man. He committed political martyrdom and defended National interest.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Lagos governor when he finished his second term supported the ambition his Chief of Staff, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) as governor. At a point after one year in office, Fashola chose martyrdom in the defence of the people’s interest. He like Obasanjo got second term. Fashola got a deserved second term for good performance.

IS MAIGARI’S BOARD INCOMPETENT?

Fashola...stood his ground

It is only in a clime of incompetence do you find things not working well. I stand up today to say that no one can or should accuse or describe the Aminu Maigari’s board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) of being incompetent. I hold one key person here in ‘prison’ and it is Mike Enahoro of the Africa Independent Television (AIT)’s Sports File. He thinks these goons are grossly incompetent.

I am now convinced beyond all reasonable doubts that the NFF chieftains are not incompetent. They deserve a national award. President Goodluck Jonathan please swing into action. These guys have a script. They have managed their script to the last letter.

Part of the script was to manufacture a special rule to sack Davidson Owumi. A Professor Ibidapo-Obe Committee was set up. They did the hatchet’s job. Owumi was sacked and left to become the aggressor.

NO, THEY’RE PLAYING A SCRIPT

They swore never to allow any former player of the game to get to manage the game. All the former players who came out were all chased out.

They swore that Aisha Falode and all those who participated in the sacking of Lulu, Uchegbulam and Ogunjobi will never return. Dominic Iorfa, Princess Bola Jegede, Obinna Ogba et al never returned.

They made Aminu Maigari to beg and prostrate to be forgiven. He was forgiven and installed as President. He had an “Aburi Agreement” to retain the staffers who worked with the Lulu administration. Incidentally, the tenure of these men expired.

Aisha Falode, it was decided in a meeting two days ago in Abuja, that she must be stopped from emerging the Chairman of the Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) for daring to remove “our anointed candidate”. Yet, the same goons had decided that Princess Bola Jegede must not return. Yet, Dilichuckwu Onyedinma CANNOT re-run the election. How does Maigari achieve this little task?

In meeting up with the dictates of his godfathers, Maigari has won again. He has extended the tenure of these men for six long months meant to ease out the tenure of the current minister, Professor Taoheed Adedoja, to go.

ADEDOJA FAUX PAS

The plan is when this minister goes, before a next minister comes, the tenure of these men would be renewed for four years.

Adedoja...missing his tracks

The issue is, what is the minister doing that the nation’s football is being played with like a chess game to which he himself is a pawn in the grand scheme of things? Khartoum in Sudan has shown that the minister is just a piece not recognized on the board.

The way we are going it is sad that Professor Adedoja does not seem to understand the import of this inanity. What stops the appointment of a new Secretary General? It is the job of the Secretary General to recruit his staffers and

manage the administration of the game.

The board of the NFF ordinarily is not Executive but one that is expected to churn out policies. The board is now involved in administration which is the functions of the office of the Secretary General. Since the minister has decided to go on leave over his oversight function, who then saves the game from extinction as we are made to head to hara-kiri?

IBIDAPO-OBE, ONYEDINMA, INYAMA PART 2

There is more confusion coming into the annals of Nigerian football. I want to state clearly that the John Ola-Mafo Appeals Committee did not read the NFF Statutes upon which she based her decisions quashing the election of Emeka Inyama and Dilichukwu Onyedinma. They have only brought new levels of confusion into the fray.

CONFUSION NUMBER 1:

The verdict delivered by the former Commissioner for Sports in Ondo State, John Ola Mafo, as head of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Appeals Committee, which states that the decision of the appeals committee is final is to me a bold misnomer. Where will the NFF under the leaderships of Alhaji Sani Abdullahi Lulu and Aminu Maigari have gotten their own rules?

Inyama and Onyedinma can call for the setting up of an arbitration tribunal to review the verdict  of the Ola-Mafo Committee. That is why the Professor Ibidapo-Obe Committee that destroyed Davidson Owumi’s election becomes important.

CONFUSION NUMBER 2:

See Article 17 of the Election Guideline and Article 12 of the NFF Electoral Code. According to the Article 17, “All appeals must be heard and concluded within seven days of the filing of the appeal.”

Ola-Mafo’s committee sat 25 days after the receipt of the petition by the secretariat of the NFF, thereby sitting contrary to clear guidelines. Methinks this anomaly has a backlash.

CONFUSION NUMBER 3:

I also went back to read the said Article 33 (3) and (4) of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Statutes cited by the appeal committee.

According to the Article 33 (3), it states that “every candidate for the post of President (of the NFF) must be nominated by his state FA of origin and endorsed by three members of NFF from three other geo-political zones.” This definitely does not and could not have been the issue with the three league elections.
Article 33 (4) states “the first vice-president and the other eight ordinary candidates must be nominated by their state FA of origin and endorsed by two members of NFF from two other geo-political zones.”

How does that concern elections into the league boards? It applies strictly to the 10 NFF executive board members. However, one big error committed by the committee is not reading article 33 (1) in tandem where the 10 executive committee members were specified?