NIGERIAN FOOTBALL: RETURN TO STATUS QUO ANTE

 

ADAMU’S PEACE MOVES:

When I read of the peace moves of Dr Amos Adamu, I sighed. I looked backwards to what I have always known of the man and concluded inside me that, “as it is becoming usual, Nigeria will sooner or later find herself in another mess.” To trust the man is to sign to commit suicide.

Shocked? Claims on FIFA as pocket material?

Check on our streets, you will appreciate the fact that we are a people habituated to crises and conflicts even in our everyday life and living. Nigeria has been threatened by a cabal who think they own our football, who boasts to anyone who bother to hear that FIFA is in their pocket. They have made so much money from our football. They are not ready to give away the goose that lays the eggs.

Think of the FIFA suspension which was hurriedly lifted last Friday. We do not have to be linguists to know that the statement announcing the ban clamped on Nigeria came from FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, the hands that actually wrote out the statement was of a Nigerian architecture.

Let’s go to the election conflict. A matter was taken to court. An injunction was given. The NFA goons prodded on by Dr Adamu pretended there was no injunction. They mounted hurdles preventing the injunction from being served. The Federal High Court Lagos post election met and gave a judgement that rightfully declared that the purported election that ought not have held in the first place is illegal, null and void. She nullified the election. from my lay understanding of Nigerian court system and law, not even that court can overrule itself. Only the Court of Appeal can so over rule.

Effectively and efficiently, in the eyes of the law, that election is gone forever. The congress that was assumed to have also been elected is gone. For that court to have ruled that the most senior officer take charge of the NFA is what parties are supposed to help the court to appropriately locate by returning the elected body existing in law as at the time that she gave the last judgement.

NIGERIA, A LAUGHING STOCK:

I heard that the Presidency was so peeved by the schemes. A call was said to have been put to Dr Amos Adamu advising him to go and resign his positions in CAF and FIFA. In 72 hours, so many events were fixed including a meeting with Harrison Jalla over withdrawing the case in court.

Nigeria was unbanned within hours giving credence to the fact that FIFA is in one of his pockets. For those who know the implications, Nigeria has become the laughing stock of the international community.

Their sense of folly was unraveled when they briefed their reporter friends, especially, the www.mtnfootball.com that is becoming so popular for such myopic reports celebrating the return of the last board led by Alhaji Aminu Maigari.

They faulted. They are so desirous and determined to pull down the entire structure of Nigerian football on everyone including themselves if they cannot have their way. They lie and profess that they love Nigerian football. They easily tell us how much they love Nigeria more than Goodluck Jonathan.

ROOT OF THE CURRENT CRISES:

The present crisis manufactured and donated to Nigeria and Nigerians goes beyond the unformulated FIFA conception of interference of third parties in the affairs of a football federation. I swear that it is not about whether Harrison Jalla of the National Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF) had gone to the Federal High Court or whether he should have gone to the Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS) in Switzerland in order to force the leadership of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA), to do what is right, equitable, fair, just, fit and proper.

I believe that if justice must have its true face and price, the first of all further settlements that Jalla’s NANF must insist and agree is, the judgement of the FHC in Lagos on the election MUST STAND. It is that the Aminu Maigari last board is not known to Nigerian law and by extension, the Nigerian government and people.

Secondly, we need new statutes for football administration which has to further democratize the football space to attract the necessary, right thinking and business-minded Nigerians into the administration of the game in Nigeria. No wonder they were asking for SWAN, NAPHER, players’ union representation.

In other words, the NFA board in place before the election which has been nullified has to be returned. Since the Congress post-election is a core issue of dispute which included part of what Chief Olusegun Odegbami took to the CAS in Switzerland, and given that we also know that FIFA will not take a caretaker nor deal with an interim arrangement, it is that Aminu Maigari board before the nullified election that has to be returned.

SOURCE OF THE ENTIRE CRISES

The entire conflict, from its generic root, is really about doing what is right, reasonable, fair, just and equitable. In any organization or group of people, once you are not guided by the principles of equity, fairplay and justice it is obvious that you are calling for trouble. In any institution where aggrieved members CANNOT have a fair media of ventilating their grievances, you are only calling people to resort to the use of violence. Without the troika of equity, fairplay and justice, society degenerates into a Hobbesian state of anarchy where life becomes short and brutish. The present conflict in Nigerian football is a cumulative product of several decades of injustice suffered by the stakeholders. This is a rare opportunity to resolve these issues now. If we all fail to resolve the issues, we all will pay dearly for it. MARK MY WORDS.

BALA NIKYU: NIGERIA’S SUPER COACH HANDLING THREE POSITIONS AT A GO

James Peters has taken over Super Falcons

Today, it’s my pleasure to bring to Nigerians the nation’s current super coach, Bala Nikyu, who has the might to handle three different positions courtesy of his god-father, James Peters, concurrently.

Nikyu is the chief coach of the national U-13 team that went to England earlier in the year. He is assistant coach to the Super Falcons and head coach, football, at the FCT Sports Council.

The Nigerian Under-13 boys that played in the International Youth football tournament organised by the English Premiership League which took place in London from 19th to 23rd August, 2010 was coached by Bala Nikyu. The bargain was to include James Peters’ son, Roosevelt, who was listed as a striker.

The players that went on that trip were supposed to have been chosen during the last U-13 national competition. Of all the teams that played in the qualifying championship, there is no team where Roosevelt’s name appeared, even as unfielded player.

Double-checks from some of the players who went on the London trip revealed, according to one of the innocent players: “the boy cannot even kick the ball lest controlling it. He just went with us to make up the number. He did not even train with us for once.”

The same coach Bala Nikyu is heading the technical crew of FC Abuja and also chief coach of the FCT sports council.

Presently, there are allegations that coach James Peters did not allow the coaches of the Super Falcons preparing for the African Women Championships (AWC) to do their job. He was also alleged to have ‘donated’ the job of assistant coach to Bala Nikyu and Gidado Usman. Ironically, the two assistants never coached any women team ever. It is on record that Gidado was sacked by the management of Voice of Nigeria FC early last year and he was impeached as the Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Football Coaches Association, Abuja branch.

However, the latest gist in town, according to some of the girls in the sex-scandal Trinidad & Tobago team, coach (James Peters) seized the jerseys which they played with in the championships which were supposed to be complimentary to the players. Please ask, where are these jerseys?

ABUJA BOMB: NEED FOR BIG BROTHER

Two of the bomb bearers.

COURTESY: SAHARAREPORTERS

With the bomb that exploded in front of the Bayelsa House in Abuja on the Friday morning while the nation was busy celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the nation’s political independence, it has called to task that there is need for increased, better, technologically-compliant and greater security of lives and property not only in the FCT Abuja but nationwide.

Two car bombs exploded near the new complex of the Federal High Court in Abuja during the independence day celebrations at the Eagle Square. The bombs which exploded on Shehu Shagari way also injured several people. Independent hospital records and number of dead bodies seen by this reporters was in the region of 31 bodies including two young kids.

Eye witness accounts told journalists that there were more than two car bombs as several explosions were heard simultaneously in the city. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, (MEND) had earlier issued a statement alerting participants at the Nigeria at 50 celebration to steer clear of the venue.  Their statement said that there was nothing to celebrate in Nigeria after 50 years of independence.

BIG BROTHER:

A colleague journalist while on a chat after the Abuja incident was so mad why we are thirsty in the midst of plenty of water. He knows a Nigerian expert in this field who has a solar powered technology, night and day capability to secure the nation.  An hour later, he came up with the name of Yakubu Salihu.

When his name was googled and search conducted, I got across to his contacts. An e-mail was sent to him to ask about what needs to be done. His first reaction: “All we need is Big Brother”.

According to him, “we have designed the ultimate solution for holistic security via networking of SOLTICE CAM.  This is a wireless Powered Surveillance Camera for outdoors remote video monitoring.  It is a tested and proven modern technological innovation for dependable 24 hour surveillance (Day and Night).”

He further explained, “a single unit of the Hi-tech device has a multi-dimensional clear vision covering a distance of 30 kilometers.  It has the amazing capacity to rotate (pan), tilt and zoom on images, recording and transmitting same to the control room streets and roads. The entire city can be put under surveillance and watched day and night.  It is also connectible to the internet, which enables authorised government security operatives or designated officials to effectively monitor relayed images anywhere in the world.”

Like the Biblical prophet who is not recognized in his home country Yakubu Salihu said, “I had come home several times troubled by the security reports I read about the country. I had intended to add value to surveillance in the country and improve the security situation. Had we put the structures in place, the cases of kidnapping and even the Abuja bombing would not have been possible,” he said resignedly and defeated.