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.

FIFA President bewildered by new revelations

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.

Abia indigenisation: coach Toblow weeps in pains

Gov. T. A. Orji

*Haba, Governor Theodore Orji
Whoever has the ears of the governor of Abia state should let him know the great unjust his state is doing to humanity, our sports and God.
For our former national Athletics coach, Tobias Igwe (better known as Toblow) to have called me as one of the few athletes he trained in tears saying, "tell President Goodluck Jonathan to please come to my aid, I have a year to retire and following the newly introduced indigenisation policy i am asked to go."
"Where do they want me to start from?" And the tears flowed again with his voice qquivering badly. "God" I muttered in my breathe. Toblow is the Athletic coach of Abia State though he hails from Imo state. As at today he is owed six months salaries.
Governor Theodore Orji should reinstate him as the state coach as well as pay him his six months outstanding salaries or retire him, pay him his dues.
This man used the most productive part of his life to develop kids from Abia and in his old age some one wants to dump him.
Hear him: “For six months now I have not been paid. I’m dying, I have   responsibilities to take of. I have to  pay for my house rent, my children’s school fees and other needs that  I have to meet. I wasn’t sacked but the state disengaged me.
After settling down, he added, "even former  2002 World Cup Champion, Uche Emedolu, and many of my  colleagues were also affected. We were asked to go  back to our state (Imo). I have only one year and half for my retirement. Where do I go from here and which state will absorb me  and pay my retirement benefits?,” Igwe asked.
Rhetorically, he asked, "have I not paid my dues as a coach especially as a grassroots coach? I’ve been able to produce budding  talents at  the grassroots level in various states and zones  of the country. I don’t deserve this ill-treatment given to me. It is sad that I have to be treated this way, after many years of service to my dear country."
Toblow was a three-time Olympic coach for Nigeria, three-times Commonwealth coach for Nigeria and two times All Africa Games coach. He has won medals at all levels. Having done all this, shouldn’t I be honoured by Abia state rather than being disengaged disgracefully this way?

Journalist Nduoyo requires N5m to live

A brilliant and practicing journalist before venturing into Public Relations and advertising field, lady Laura Nduoyo, developed episodes of pains, breathlessness on exertion after undergoing surgery at a private hospital in Lagos.

She was evaluated at Wuse General Hospital, Abuja by Dr A.J. Agidee and found to have acute gastroenteritis resulting in chronic partial intestinal obstruction with terrible pains. She has been operated upon twice and N5 million will save Laura's life, don't let her die!

She is in urgent need of corrective surgery, please HELP NOW. She will need to go for treatment in a facility outside Nigeria with an estimated treatment cost of just N5million. Please let’s save Laura. God will bless you in all your endeavours. You can pay directly into her account. The details are: 

Name: Laura Nduoyo
Bank: Skye bank, Toyin street, Ikeja-Lagos.
Account number: 1760075069 (For cheques alone)
Name: Laura Nduoyo
Bank : GTB Bank, Opebi, Ikeja-Lagos:
Account number: 221852644110

London 2012: Where is Innocent Egbunike?

In nations of the world who understand the implications of unveiling their national team coaches, no matter the sports discipline, it is appreciated that such moves are not usually for only commercial purposes only but it is always a gambit to sell the event to marketers and sponsors.

That is why teams who know the value involved are always actively celebrating the players they are buying. It is also a media of securing the fans base of teams when the players or coaches would have been hyped and celebrated to the high heavens as if nothing else matters in the team or sport.

It is always a bigger deal when it is with successful athletes, coaches or federations. Nigeria had in football had it done severally in the national team level when we had to celebrate such coaches like Amodu Shaibu (MON), Samson Siasia, Stephen Keshi if the list is just the indigenous coaches.

A situation where we have a world celebrity like Innocent Egbunike whose record is not only gargantuan but intimidating by the record of athletes he has produced. Some people seem to be playing politics with his appointment as head coach of the Nigerian national team.

The Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) boss, Solomon Ogba, last week re-announced the fact that he is the head of a consortium of people they called coaches. Of the list of 12 persons mentioned, only Tony Osheiku is really a coach.

The question on the lips of Nigerians is, why did the AFN not make him available for the commercial values? Since his ‘appointment’ which we gathered, he was not consulted at all, how far this is true remains to be confirmed.in all, where is the coach? Time is not our friend in this game of wits being played by the AFN.

Egbunike served as 2008 head, Track & Field coach for Nigeria in the Beijing Olympics in China. He has also served as coach in the Nigerian Track & Field contingents in 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, with the accomplishment of a gold medal for the 4x400 relay team. The first in the history of the country.

Egbunike has coached over 25 Olympians, 15 Olympic medallists, 6 World Championship medallists and 9 current and past national record-holders. No human being in Nigeria has ever done this.

As an athlete, he was a former sprinter from who won an Olympic bronze medal in the 4 x 400 meters relay in the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. He finished sixth in the final of the individual 400 metres contest. Four years later in Seoul he placed fifth. In addition he won a silver medal in the 400 metres at the 1987 World championship.

He also won the gold medal in the 200 metres at the 1983 Summer Universiade with a personal best of 20.42 seconds; he followed this by finishing 6th in a world class field in the 200 metre final at the 1983 World Championship in Helsinki. He also won the Soviet 100 metres in 1983.
His Azusa Pacific University school record at 400 metres stands;

Two years later at the 1985 Summer Universiade he won the 400 metres. At the regional level he won the 1987 All Africa Games as well as three gold medals at the African Championships.

As a coach, some of the list of his top athletes he has managed include Angelo Taylor, the gold medalist in the 400m hurdles at the 2008 Olympics; Chris Brown, the fourth-place finisher in the 400m at the 2008 Olympic Games; Davidson Ezinwa with his record 9.91seconds in the 100m; Tyree Washington with the celebrated 20.09 in 200m; The Kenyan, Solomon Wariso with the record 44.67 seconds in 400m, Mikey Grimes who clocked 10.00 seconds in 100m in 2007. He was the Nigerian track and field team coach at the 1996, 2000 and 2008 Olympics.

World Cup 2010: How NFF spent N90m to win Kenya match

Alhaji Abdullahi Sani Lulu

• N23.39m for change of name

• N9m to feed in one match

Just to change the name Nigeria Football Association (NFA) to Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) cost the nation’s tax payers thesumofN23.39m by the ousted and immediate past board led by Alhaji Sani Abdullahi Lulu.

This amount was said to have been spent on hosting the Congress that approved the change of name which took place in Lokoja, Kogi State during the Annual General Meeting (AGM). The Lulu board in the document revealed that the board in 2009 claimed to have spent N8.58m on legal services and N16.1m on “other professional services” whatever that means.

According to the document, the 2010 World cup cost Nigeria N120m to play the home and away game against Kenya. A breakdown showed that N30m was spent to charter Chachangi Air for the match against Kenya while the match itself cost N90m.

Further details provided in the document showed N87m went for financial requirement for the Kenya versus Nigeria match, accommodation and feeding of the Super Eagles. Followers of the game interpreted that the “N87m went for financial requirement for the Kenya versus Nigeria match” is an euphemism for the match fixed in the desperate means for the nation to have qualified for the World Cup. Match fixing was suspected by the dramatic content of the qualification then.

There were several items in the budget that were repeated. For instance, under the item tagged as ‘sporting activities analysis’, the item with serial number 32 claimed that the board spent N80m on “financial requirement for the Kenya versus Nigeria match” while item number 57 under the same heading had N87m showing a careless inability to manipulate the figures to cover their dirty tracks.

If we extend the arguments, that will mean that financial requirement for the Kenya versus Nigeria match cost Nigeria N167m on just one away match against Kenya in Nairobi!

Another case of absolute inconsistency in expenditure is revealed on the feeding and accommodation of the Super Eagles where on item number 34 N5.680m was quoted and on item number 58, the same board claimed N3m. That means the team was fed with N8.68m for one match.

In the all expenses paid international friendly in Paris where the Super Eagles defeated the French national team by 1-0, it was alleged to have cost the nation N50.251m while the all expenses paid friendly against the Republic of Ireland in London which ended in a draw gulped a massive N63.142m.

All these were contained in the 2009 budget performance document submitted to the Nigeria lower parliament, the House of Representatives.

It will be recalled that the NFF has been mired in a massive fraudulent and financial crisis including the current trial of the leadership of that board by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Those who are still standing trial in a Federal High Court in Abuja include Alhaji Sani Abdullahi Lulu, Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi, Mr. Amanze Uchegbulam and Dr. BolajiOjo-Oba. They are standing for billions of Naira that cannot be accounted for.

Shortly before that board left the seat, the sum of $238,000 developed wings and got missing from the vaults of the NFF.