2011: ANOTHER WASTED YEAR IN OUR FOOTBALL LIFE?

Maigari...Nigeria Federation of Fraud (NFF)

NIGERIA FEDERATION OF FRAUD (NFF): Uhm! Abracadabra!! Failures have taken over the nation’s soul. There is fire on the mountain. Beelzebub and its host of ilk spirits have taken over an angelic body. Who saves us? Do we continue our mourning as suggested in my last piece? Beware, lo and behold, the obsequies of Nigerian football has started in earnest!

There was a folk saying in 2003. A governor who failed woefully got his dad to campaign that if a child fails in a class won’t it be logical that he repeats the class? Since the current FA bosses in the states have woefully failed, it is only logical to allow themselves be voted into office again for another term. Is it not election that is the problem being complained by the people who are protesting?

FA selections (sorry folks, it is election that is intended) conducted in kangaroo processes. Forms were not made available anywhere. Election committees were not set up anywhere. If the committees were set up they had less than a week to finish the processes. All the celebrated failures got selected (sorry, elected). This is the eighth wonder of the world.

DR AMOS ADAMU SYNDROME: No one in Nigeria, even the ones in their mothers’ wombs, does not know the greatest sports administrator in the country for the century, the “Godfather of the Godfathers” and the most controversial and most reported, our own, Dr Amos “Babatunde Oyekale Oyelere Aremu” Adamu.

I am not being satirical. Doubt me? I hope all the enemies of progress won’t come up with names they think are cleaner and better than my choice? They are wont to start to mention such names like Isaac Akioye, Elayae Awoture, Ahmed Yahaya, Elias Gora and such names. If anyone does, I will curse you that God in His infinite mercies make you bold to say the truth at all times while He increase and magnify your ambitions, visions and plans this year!

Back to base. Our own, the Gidfather of Godfathers has bred such Godfathers like Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi, Abdullahi Sani Lulu, Amanze Uchegbulam, Dr Tijani Yusuf etc These ones have further bred new breeds now in the saddle.

Whatever is being done now by lesser mortals have been done by some saints in the past. So there is nothing new anywhere. Therefore, can we all rise and congratulate all the members of the Maigari’s board of the Nigeria Federation of Fraud (NFF) who won as Chairmen of State FAs in the recently concluded kangaroo selection. (Please forgive the printer’s devil. I forgot the other popular meaning of the NFF. You can also change selection to election if you like.

Ask, why should Sepp Blatter and Issa Hayatou not be the Swiss and Camerounian FA Presidents simultaneously? I think Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State should sack the Chairmen of Dolphins FC and Sharks FC of Port Harcourt IMMEDIATELY and give Mr. Chris Green as the Chairman of the two clubs. This will make him and his ilks on the NFF board who are doubling as State FA Chairmen meet the local version of Dr Adamu.

I will also recommend other state governments whose NFF members are their state FA chairmen to follow the recommendations to Mr Amaechi.

Gentlemen and ladies, may we all rise now to hail the new Czars of Nigerian football as we head down the hill to oblivia. Adieu Nigerian football!

NIGERIAN FOOTBALL: CAN WE BEGIN MOURNING?

Prof Adedoja...which way?

If you do not have sack clothes, can you proceed to buy, borrow or better still, steal. Yes, steal. If you must steal for our national interest please do. It’s time to mourn for Nigerian football! Be unconsolable. Use your tears to write on the placard that the game is sick. Please ask for euthanasia for the game. The aches and pains are overbearing and becoming unbearable.

The nurses given the “illegal” mandate to tend the wounds sustained by the game are feeding it with poison! They are importing strange rules to the ethics of managing such ailments. Rather than treat the diagnosed dis-eases they are busy haggling over how much will be paid by the patient and how it will be looted.

ANYASI AND MUAZU: Two men, Enyimba of Aba FC Chairman, Chief Felix Anyansi Agwu and The NFA’s Referees Committee chairman, Suleiman Muazu should be told in plain words the implication of the sack of NPL Chairman by the Executive Committee of the NFA in which they sat and took the decision. Their integrities have been tainted. The only and the best way out for them is, in my own myopic opinion, RESIGN from the NFA. They have lost the basis to remain on board.

Both men served on the NPL electoral committee whose processes brought in Davidson Owumi. Both men sat on the Executive Committee of the NFA led by Aminu Maigari that practically rubbished whatever they did in the NPL. What integrity is left in them?

LEAGUE BOARDS ELECTIONS: Is it thst the members of the Executive Committee of the NFA did not go to school or that they are simply blinded by the superior force outside the NFA remote controlling them?

I needed to ask this question in the face of the crass disregard for the same Statutes that brought them into office, which is supposed to guide them in all their conducts. These personae are employing powers outside the NFA statutes and is not in clear conformity with several FIFA letters nor the FIFA Standard Statutes (FSS) which caused the NPL crises. Where did the NFA get the powers to arrogate to themselves to organise the nomination and electoral process of the representatives of the Amateur, Women and Professional leagues?

Let it be said that the decision to sell forms for this purpose amounts to stealing. To organise the screening and election of anyone into any of these boards is simply thievery and illegal. It is not in tandem with NFA, CAF and FIFA rules. So where did they derive the powers from?

PROFESSOR TAOHEED ADEDOJA: I have formed the penchance of writing the last three of his predecessors as Sports Minister/Chairman of the NSC to warn them what to expect when they get to the office. For this minister, my spirit refused to write. Why, I don’t know.

Ibrahim Isa bio, his immediate past colleague, is definitely a genuinely good man whose intentions are clearly of good. He was consumed and confused with the fraud in Nigerian football. He was not helped by a bureaucratic NSC that is not used to being decisive on any matter!

With four months, does Prof Adedoja want to join the list of journeymen that passed through that ministry as ministers and before batting an eyelid can be forgotten to the cols of history?

Methinks all he needs to do is be like a soldier.

(1)    Ask the NFA, to bring to fore in black and white where they derived the power to set up the Prof. Ibidapo-Obe panel; If they have such powers in the statutes, uphold the decision on Owumi. If not quash immediately the decision;

(2)    Induct before the end of January 2011 the process, selection and appointment of an experienced administrator as the Secretary General;

(3)    By February 2011, cause the NFA to face squarely its primary duty of enduring development plans for the game in Nigeria, including the standardization o all football academies in the nation.

Anything short of this, fellow compatriots, can we begin to sing the NuncDimitis. Mourn and mourn endlessly. The end is here for our football.

TENDING A GARDEN OF STONES

NPL seat for a fugitive?

 DECISION ON THE NPL WAS FRAUDULENT: It was actually the decision of the Maigari-led Executive Committee of the NFA that took the decision to sack Davidson Owumi and not the Congress of the NFA. Those who were present and who knew said, the matter was not brought up at anytime. So why the Executive Committee had to smuggle a regular decision and make it look like it was a Congress decision?

Owumi...NFF seeks trouble?

LAW AND REASON: Those who crafted the Statute of the NFA must be practical illiterates who dream that it is only their ilks that should continue to govern a very important and high intellectual field like football by saying the minimum requirement to contest any office is having a School Certificate. No wonder the quality of human resources found therein from the grassroots to the secretariat. That apart for now.

Now to the law books of football in the country. Article 68 of the NFF Statutes 2010 edition page 42. Adopted in the Congress that ratified the sack of Lulu & Co. after the election. Though, a retroactive decision.

The Article has it that: “NFF shall create an Arbitration Tribunal which shall deal with all internal national disputes between NFF, its members, players, officials, match and players agent that do not fall under jurisdiction of its judicial bodies. The Executive Committee shall draw up special regulations regarding composition, jurisdiction, procedural rules of this Arbitration Tribunal.”

Did FIFA not ask that the “NFF statute should regulate the basic organisation of the NFF”? FIFA stated unequivocally: The NFF statutes CANNOT interfere in the organisation of other entities, including its members.” I think they either did not see this or read it upside down.

FORGIVING THE NFF TROIKA: Given the fact that they have been forgiven the sins of their impeachment by the same board, this time, ratified by Congress. Can we become speculators? In the matter filed before the Court of Arbitration (CAS) the “Fantastic Four” (including Dr Bolaji Ojo-Oba) postulated that their impeachment was done in error. If they go to court, they can win. If they win, Maigari’s entire board is out! Myopic? Re-assess the legal implications of that decision again? I forsee the Lulu gang coming back through the back door! One of them is designed to take Owumi's seat. Their argument in the NFF? Owumi and Mike Umeh are from the South East. Both of them CANNOT be first and second Vice of the NFF. So Owumi should be sacrificed for a South West person. This is why the candidate for Secretary General (a south east person) can't be announced. So if Owumi gives way, they will sort out these other "jobs for the boys."

IS THE NFA POPULAR?: One truth is, there is no point in time I have seen Nigerians being as unanimous as this case between the NFA and the NPL. My measure is a simple medium. Brila FM has a daily audience participative programme called BACK PASS. It was the last edition for 2010. What a way to close the year? The issue? The NFA decision to sack Davidson Owumi. The anchor was Lawrence Nwachukwu who by the tradition of the said programme is THE SPEAKER. 38 callers, two inductees, seven women. They all voted against Maigari’s NFA. Not one saw any wisdom in their decision. Can this be a good measure of the popularity or and acceptability of the Maigari board?

Ikpeba...exposed fraud in NFA decision

FRAUDULENT TECHNICAL COMMITTEE: So the Technical Committee headed by Barrister Chris Green is afterall a fraud. Did the committee meet to discuss, nominate and ratify the names of Samson Siasia’s assistants as they make Nigeria and Nigerians believe? I heard a member of the committee, the Prince of Monaco Victor Nosa Ikpeba, on Brila FM, insinuating the committee did not meet on these issues. How was the appointment of the coaches then reached? This is fraud. Someone should be told to resign I think.

I thought Ikpeba went to school and is educated. So he should not behave like some of the drop out footballers who know how to play football but will bootlick to survive. Can this be done to Ikpeba and other members of that committee using their names to lie publicly, what then is the hope of our football on the anvil of integrity? This is sad. This is the type of Maigari’s men. Kudos to Ikpeba for speaking out loud. This is also why we beg our athletes to go to school so that they can stand firm like Ikpeba did on this occasion.

GLASS HOUSE: REVELATION CHAPTER ONE

I am in a hurry to declare that Nigerian football has fallen into a deep abyss. A psychologic re-examination of the broad led by Aminu Maigari reveals no hope. I am not shocked to let you know that when a man who attended school has to work under an unschooled boss, confusion will break bone. Uhm, God bless Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

QUICK ONE: Aminu Maigari never attended any school. This is no joke. I have been investigating this in the last two months. The revelations are outstandingly comedic. Our football is surely ‘ADVANCING TO THE REVERSE’. Can these simple questions be answered by those who should know:

1.      Who cleared Aminu Maigari to contest the first and his last NFA elections ‘ab initio’?

2.      Whosoever did (then and now) deserves to rot in jail and in hell;

3.      They all conspired to use their positions to pervert justice. Their action(s) is/are sad and un-Godly.

4.      With what school certificate did he (Maigari) get cleared to run for all the elections he contested and won?

5.      Which examination body awarded Maigari’s certificate?

ISSUES OF PUBLIC INTEREST.

Maigari...Is his certificate troubled?

If a panel assigned with the onerous task of protecting and defending public interest decides, for whatever reasons, to abdicate its duty, screen and pass unfit candidates for an election, at whatever level, is it not fair and just to hold the panel(s), its members, the candidate and everyone who knows of the unfit status of the candidate(s) for the same offence? If you must answer this question recall the so called verdict of the Professor Ibidapo-Obe Committee of the NFF on the last NPL election. (I maintain Ibidapo-Obe’s committee has no place in the NPL or and the NFF statutes). That was an aside as in drama.

Secondly, methinks all such documents submitted for such exercises as above, though private, but since you seek public office, the moment there arises doubts, bothering on your initial qualification, integrity and fitness for the office, not a private nor appointive office, as a public officer, such should be re-investigated in the public interest;

For this reason, I have concluded to invade the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), on the first working day of January 2011 with a happy new year demand for this investigation in the interest of the Nigerian public.

NOW: Since I opened this investigation and sounded it in this blog, I have received subtle new threats. I will welcome an increased threat or direct attempt now that the colour of the cat is revealed.

AGAIN: I gathered two other board members of the current board are simply UNFIT. They are up for the anvil. Any man or woman who lacks integrity have no business working in the GLASS HOUSE nor throwing stones. As they throw stones, we will throw what the Hausa proverb says: “ban gwan kwali uba’n dutse” which the Yorubas translate to mean: “Ogulutu baba oko”. Are you cut off? Sorry.