Dr. Amos Adamu: Truth from the unusual corner for NFF crisis

Former FIFA man, Dr. Amos Adamu

DATELINE: 30^th August, 2008. Venue is the Rockview Hotel, Abuja and the event was the Globacom Premier league seminar with a theme of ‘Good governance and the future of football league in Africa.

Some of the key personnel there include Chief Oyuiki ‘moving train’ Obaseki, Dominic Iorfa, Harry Iwuala, then of Globacom, SuperSport’s Felix Awogu, Mainasara Ilo, Daily Trust‘s Ismaila Lere etc The key speaker at the closing ceremony which started from the 26^th was Dr. AmosAdamu. The import I am trying to draw out is the fact that, certain home truth were delivered which today remains the key that anyone who is sincere needs to either watch the 47:13minutes recording of the proceedings.

TRUTH NO. 1: MEDIA IS OUR PROBLEM: By the order of Dr. Adamu himself, this should be the second but I have brought it to the fore as the first. Hear him: “You, the media, you are one of our biggest problems. Please report the game. Leave the personalities alone. Leave Lulu, Obaseki, Amos Adamu or the minister out of your reports. You are the biggest stakeholders of sports in Nigeria. Many of the things we read on your pages reflect the quality of respect extended to you. (This is very true as sportswriters are the least respected journalists in Nigeria).

He continued: “leave the personalities, report the coaches, athletes, fans and the game. Go into the policies and politics, do the critique and we will advance.”

TRUTH NO. 2: RESPECT FOR OURSELVES AND THE RULES: This was in the order Dr. Adamu’s second. It is second here. If we respect ourselves, the policies and the rules of the engagements between us, there will be no conflict rather we shall develop. He cited where according to him: “I create conflict between the two of them atimes to create room for development. I will call Obaseki and tell him, why agree to Lulu. When Lulu comes complaining, I tell him don’t agree. When they have reached a level, I’ll tell him, ‘don’t agree’. Until I leave there will be no conflict again between them. (was that not the truth?).

If the NFF had respected the rules of engagement in the game considering the NFF 2010 Statutes (with its defective terms) and the NPL autonomy (given the letter of FIFA stating the independence), this crisis won’t be there.

TRUTH NO. 3: FOLLOW YOUR HEART: This is one thing I appreciate and respect the man for despite our marked differences about his administration of Nigerian sports when he was in service. At personal terms, he once told me. I watched him say it publicly. His words: “If you listen to what people say you won’t perform. Believe in yourself. If you have a convinced position, stick to it irrespective of what anybody says. If you have a genuine course, stick to it. Follow it through.

INTERPRETATIONS: The foundation for the crisis in Nigerian football started with the fallacy of the statute moderation in the Makurdi congress. I stand to be corrected. If this root is not touched by the peace operators, then, their peace remains that of the graveyard like I earlier described it.

Two, architect of the protracted protest was the national Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF) as personified by Harrison Jalla. Any route without these duo is a futile exercise. Go through their grouse(s). It pre-dated the coming of Aminu Maigari and his board. The issues remain the same. So, why must some people personalize the issues around the person of Jalla? Can we rubbish the issues?

Three, the coming of Olusegun Odegbami into the conflict remains out growth from the functions that Jalla started. The coming of Jarret Tenebe found expression in the same issues.

Four, the same Dr. Amos Adamu as primed by Dr. Rafiu Ladipo found a shortcut with the peace pact that led to the withdrawal of the of the proceedings in the Federal High Court, Lagos presided by Justice Okon Abang. The winner takes all syndrome killed the integrity that the Maigari board had.

Five, we are back on the same path we had passed before. They have a ‘new’ peace pact. Is this pact genuine and real? Can it lead to their destination? No.

THE VISIT TO ZURICH: I had my deep reservations. My convictions remain the same. Piecemeal peace pacts won’t get to the destination. Time will prove me right or wrong.

GENERAL DOMINIC ONEYA: One man I had never hidden my lack of respect for is General Dominic Oneya. He did not fail me again. Why did he sit for four months presiding over the Reform Committee and had to go to the CAF/FIFA people meeting to spurn all he had done? It is a sad commentary on what he represents in our football.

 One fact remains, the Oneya committee did a thorough job. Their report, to me, represents the very basis that will help the most genuine peace track. Anything short of this will take us back to the trenches. Not just the trenches but deeper trenches. The beneficiaries of the crisis are getting fatter pockets. Many of the mare sports journalists. The others mystically are in the corridors of the game. They will prefer to have a stalemate than have things go on rightly as it should lest they are smoked into oblivia. I rest my nerves.

NFF finds peace in the grave yard

FIFA President, hope he won't get new stories?

Can the celebration begin? A short-cut has been gotten.  Two major headaches of the NFF have been settled. Dr. Sam Sam-Jaja gets honourary membership. Why is anyone asking if that was what he bidded for ab initio which was why he went to court? Some monies to pay for his legal services come with it. For these concessions, he is not expected to activate the law suit in terms of seeking for breach of the orders of Justice Okorowo’s court.

Dr. Ray Nnaji also gets paid for his legal services in all the fight he’s engaged in. So, he’s expected to become a ‘good boy’ and keep his voice out of it all.

To proponents of the pro-Maigari board this is the end of the crisis in Nigerian football. Therefore, this calls for celebration. Wonderful!

To those who know and understand what is on ground, this is like fooling the self. The hydra-headed monster whose head was severed in one corner is being celebrated to have been killed. What about the other heads of the monster?

The real fight that degenerated to opportunistic fighters like Sam Sam Jaja and Nnaji belong to Harrison Jalla’s National Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF). The other flank is Olusegun Odegbami’s. So, for any fool to be celebrating on the opportunist beneficiaries is equal to getting peace in the graveyard. The ghosts will haunt the wraiths they think they’ve buried.

Why is the NFF self-destruct? They are like the Bourbons of France who learnt nothing from history and forgot nothing to history. When Justice Okon Abang gave the monumental judgment in Lagos. They had a peace parley signed with NANF. The NFF was so ungentlemanly not to respect the terms of the agreement. Yet, they did not make legal moves to vacate the orders of that court.

They have another judgment again this time from Justice Donatus Okorowo. They have a peace pact with Nnaji and Sam Jaja. I predict the NFF as usual will not respect the terms. Fight will soon break out again. They will not pursue to vacate the judgment at hand.

Their peace pact will not and can never obliterate the orders of that court. See their foolery? Evil days are postponed. The war has just begun. More ghosts will come on revenge mission. Watch out. More opportunists will also come to the fore. Are the fundamental issues that led to the crises sorted out? Haba! Whoever tied this pact is a big clown!

This definitely must be the political solution minister Bolaji Abdullahi promised us. Aminu Maigari, Sam Jaja and Ray Nnaji all belong to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The PDP has produced a political solution which can only remain political and not football. That is why the political solution seems to be good for them. Now that the political solution has been found, those of us who are not ‘politrick-cians’ will continue the fight. We do not need government to support us as we never had government. It is a football fight and will continue at that.

When the people in government want a forceful solution, they should start arresting those of us who want to fight. They can frame charges and keep us “trouble makers” (that is the language of government people, ask Wada Nas). Option is to take on us using the Bagauda Kaltho path.

One fact remains, you can’t fool all the people all the time.

 Anyim Pius Anyim: Someday sometimes in the nearest future, we will be back to ask what exactly was the role of the sitting Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in the so-called settlement brokered in his office and presence. I had thought of it that as a lawyer he is an officer of court.

That he presided over the side-stepping of a valid court order with an informal and one-sided set of parties to a complex web of footbrawl crisis. To me, like those who know, this peace (that’s what they called it) is like burying a cadaver whose feet is above surface level.

This crisis has actually just started. In a matter of days and weeks, we will all, insha Allahu, witness what I am seeing with my troublesome third eye. Like all my previous predictions, this will anon come to pass and these personae behind the charade called peace will realize what they have done.

What is in a name? Time will tell. siddon look

CHANGE OF NAME: I, formerly known as the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) now wish to be known and addressed courtesy of Senator David Mark, the priest at the naming ceremony, as the House of Corruption in Nigeria (HCN). All public documents remains valid. FIFA, CAF, Nigerian media and the public to note.

Three victims of that wonderful but damning Senate verdict

President GEJ...feeling football headache

NSC/Sports Ministry: For them as the supervisory agency for sports, the latest Senate verdict has caught them in the off-side position. They had the law on their side to act. They refused. Two court judgments gave them the window they refused. They set up the Dominic Oneya committee which all the feuding parties, ab initio, agree to stand by its decisions. Till date they have not been able to implement. They want to visit FIFA headquarters to get estacode and leave the football crisis to fester on. Heard the Maigari board may have settled with them to run their full term so they are buying time for the board. Can this be for a cost?

Maigari's NFF board: In the meantime, shall we all rise for the Nigerian Senate. My heart was at rest hearing the troubled but patriotic voices of Heineken Lokpobiri, Barnabas Gemade, George Akume. I searched and could not find Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki another well versed voice on matters of sports. I know where he has always stood on these matters had he been around, there is no way he would not have resonated like his other colleagues.

Senator Lokpobiri shocked me. In his first term in the Senate, he was a friend of the NFF. He came out in strong words to lay the problem of football as administration. He called the current managers mediocres and said those who were always brought in to run its affairs are simply mediocres. He singled out the immediate past NFF helmsman, Sani Lulu Abdullahi for allegedly mismanaging about N2.16 billion of the NFF funds.

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House of Representatives: Unlike the ethnic and politics of attrition the lower chamber, the House of Representatives is playing on the football matters, the Senate showed maturity, vision, vim and national interest. That Senate verdict showed the House of Reps to be biased, myopic and clowns in parliament.

They have struggled to divert the nation's attention by a supposed investigation of the National Sports Commission, (NSC).

GENESIS: We (Adokie Amasiemaka, Olusegun Odegbami, Harrison Jalla, Patrick Omorodion, Jarret Tenebe, then later, Toyin Ibitoye) have severally written, fought or gone to EFCC amnd courts of the land about the corruption in the NFF.

 The more we write, fight, scream and alert of the quanta of fraud and corruption in the Glass House the more we were all made to look like rabble rousers. We were to them not making any sense. We were just disturbing the development of the game.

Senator Lokpobiri spoke the truth

I recall when Tenebe and his friends (Simon Akiga, Ahmed Gara-Gombe, Chikelue Iloenyosi, Jalla, Kayode Ajulo) came up with the interim committee of the NFA, the government stoutly abused and called them names. When their issues were tabled in the public domain they were taken serious.

THIEVING: Thieving is a daily routine in the NFF. It all started in Taiwo Ogunjobi's tenure as Secretary General. Visa racketeering etc Then, at the twilight of Lulu's tenure was the $236,000 that got lost from the coffers. No breakage. The door and safe were neatly opened and the money just left on its own. Today, no one is liable!

The 2010 World Cup $8m money has gone into private pockets according to my in-house sources in the NFF.

The money Nigerian government gave the NFF to prosecute the World Cup nko? When those who collected the money were asked to explain how they spent tax payers' monies, they said they can’t be held or tried because FIFA abhors football matters to be taken to the ordinary courts. Justice Okorowo has ruled and the matter remains on trial.

COMPLICIT EFCC: When I started the battle immediately after the 2010 World Cup, I wrote the EFCC with investigated details. I had to accuse the then Chairman, Farida Waziri, of having collected NFF bribe before she angrily sent the matter to court two day later. EFCC is still battling with that.

Tenebe's NFA went to the same EFCC on the Maigari board. I heard, (not verified) that the matter will never see the light of the day. It has not seen any light, even candle light, despite damning evidences gathered by the investigators. I was interrogated for three hours on the matter.

CLONED THIEVING: My granny will say you will breed children of your ilks. As a good child of the NFF, since the "crowned" chairman of the NPL, Victor Baribote, over  N120 million has been stolen.

Dominic Oneya's committee did a good job

WILL THE SENATE DELIVER?: The Senate President, David Mark, summarised the truth calling the NFF what it actually is, house of corruption. Can the Senate investigate the NFF well? Order for a 12 year audit by a reputable organisation (not the NEITI type) and prosecute whoever is found guilty so that sanity will return to our football again.

Can the Senate adopt the Dominic Oneya report especially the draft amendment of the NFA Act unlike the jankara her lower chamber colleagues are cooking that will bring fresh and unending law suits on our football?

Can the Senate seek and get to the roots once and for all? This is where the Oneya Committee report handily comes in again. I fought the committee badly exposing some things about their conducts but they did a wonderfully good job.

ADDED TIME: From the efforts on ground, do we need the Senate to have come into this matter? Dereliction of duty due to personal interests have led us here.  With the Senate entry, please start praying for them to have the courage to do what is right and save our football, the biggest tool of unity, from the hands of medoicres.