“Friends,
Romans,
countrymen,
lend me your
ears;
I come to bury
Caesar, not to
praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar…”
- Mark Anthony in William Shakespeare’s
Julius Ceasar
I will borrow a line from Mark Anthony’s
famous speech at Ceasar’s funeral by
saying: Friends, Nigerians, “Football
Stakeholders”, lend me your ears.
Four years ago, I wrote a column here
titled Nigeria football: elections to
nowhere and it was so popular, I had to
answer lots of questions from a lot of
international media outlets trying to make
sense of all the madness in the run up to
the Nigerian football elections.
Once again, I have observed from a
distance the sheer lunacy of the hollow
ritual called Nigeria Football Federation’s
elections, and the script is the same
except the twists and turns make for a
truly epic Nollywood move and I am no
longer going to ask what is wrong with
Nigerian football.
That would be just too simplistic. The
question should rather be: what is not
wrong with Nigerian football? I will not
bore you with the intrigues that go into
the elections. Read what I wrote in 2010
and tell me if anything has changed and
trust me, I will not take sides but I will
be frank and focus on the good of
Nigeria.
Monday night, 1 September, 2014 was
perhaps the biggest night in international
football, the transfer deadline day and
how we were entertained by the intrigues
of horse trading and the excitement of
clubs gaining certain players and others
losing.
How shocking was it that Falcao moved to
Manchester United and the disbelief of
Danny Wellbeck going to Arsenal, but
before we get distracted, Nigeria also
had its own deadline day – the Fifa
deadline for the “elected” board of the
Nigeria Football Federation to vacate the
“Glass” house, read the “Burnt” house.
So how did we get here? Why are we
unable to have a smooth transition every
four years? Why do we behave like
lunatics in an asylum? Who is to blame?
Everybody involved in the process should
bury their heads in shame, all those who
call themselves “Football Stakeholders”,
the outgoing NFF board, the "newly
elected" board and we can also blame the
Sports Minister. I am also ashamed I am
Nigerian and belong to the football class,
even though I am far away from all the
intrigues.
I have held positions in Nigerian Football,
as team manager, director of Sharks and
board member of the Rivers State Football
Association and participated and attended
the NFF congress, even run for a seat as
a board member apart from my long
career as a TV football commentator on
national TV and international media.
How is everything that has transpired
since Nigeria lost to France going to help
shape the future of Nigerian football?
When are they going to realise that
leadership comes with responsibility and
accountability?
Why do I keep asking questions? Only
because nothing makes sense.
However, over the tenure of the Maigari
Board, Nigeria won Afcon 2013 in South
Africa last year, that’s 19 years after
our last win. The U17 team again won the
World Cup and the Super Eagles made it
to the last 16, something we have not
achieved since 1998.
Surely, that’s something to build on,
whether Aminu Maigari and his board get
elected or get replaced. That’s what the
elections should have been about. Either
the congress re-elects all or some of
them based on the score card or they are
replaced by people with better ideas,
clearly articulated to the voting congress.
To achieve this, there’s a right way and
there’s a wrong way to do this and
clearly, what has happened has not
followed the statutes of the Nigeria
Football Federation and the events of 26
August will go down the road of infamy.
How do we say there was no interference
when Maigari was arrested, detained and
why hold him and Chris Green in detention
till after the congress? Why was Musa
Ahmadu alone released?
Why would Maigari send a resignation to
the sports ministry and not to the NFF
congress and why only after numerous
arrests?
Before that, we saw the impeachment of
Maigari by a board that waited four years
and just two weeks to the end of their
tenure to say he had been running the
affairs with only a few members. That
exercise was taken out of the script of
Julius Ceasar’s end.
These are the matters that should have
been tabled at the congress, which is also
an indictment on the quality of leaders
who aspire to run Nigerian football.
I have never been a fan of Maigari
because I do not agree with the way he
came to power. It’s the same kind of
politics that saw him replace Sani Lulu
when he was in fact a member of the
same board.
I remember publicly confronting Maigari in
Nelspruit during Afcon 2013 over the
distractions he and his board dealt the
Super Eagles with all the talk of replacing
Keshi midway into the tournament and
even the other board members know I
don’t spare them over a lot of their
actions but they did make progress with
results.
What I expected the “football
stakeholders” and the sports minister to
do was simply to come back from Brazil
and call for a review of the performance
of the board, and also call for explanation
for the embarrassments over allowances.
The congress shouldn’t always be about
elections. That would have been an
opportunity for aggrieved board members
to share all that we have now read about
them not being “carried along” but sadly,
you cannot separate all that is wrong
about Nigerian mainstream politics from
the Nigeria Football Federation.
The intrigues and shenanigans employed
by all parties involved reeks of
desperation and unnecessary power tussles
that will neither benefit the growth of
the game nor produce the right
candidates.
Beyond the arrests by the department of
state security, nocturnal meetings with
the Secretary to the Nigerian government
and also all kinds of congresses at various
hotels and under the trees and on the
roadsides of Abuja, and an “elective
congress”, there should have been a
properly constituted congress to chart a
new direction for proper elections.
Now we have an “elected” president who
insists he was properly elected despite
calls by Fifa for him to step down. I have
only one comment for Chris Giwa and his
co-travellers, and that is: There are 44
people who form the voting congress. They
should publish the names and photographs
from the congress and elections as well as
the minutes of the 26 August elections
and I hope they have video recordings.
I have participated in the NFF elections
as a candidate and as a member of
congress, as well as a journalist, and there
is always full media coverage. That’s all
they need to convince Nigerians.
I have also been very disappointed by the
statements issued in response to the Fifa
letters, as regards their interventions and
I think they have been generally
disrespectful and clearly show a lack of
understanding of the workings of Fifa.
Fifa has so far been consistent in their
handling of this crisis and they have not
treated Nigeria differently. Everything
they have done has been in line with their
statutes with their stance against
government interference and control of
the process of electing and running of
football federations and associations
globally.
To those who claim to be the “real
congress”now refered to as the "Maigari
camp" , some of you have behaved like
confused people, dancing one way or the
other. How do you explain the changing of
positions?
Why has the last board been almost one
hundred percent dependent on the sports
ministry for fundiing yet complain about
interference? Why have you failed to
grow sponsorship on the success of the
Super Eagles?
To the sports minister and the secretary
to the government as well as the House of
Representative sports committee, their
roles should be advisory and reconciliatory
and if the NFF has broken any laws, there
is the Nigerian constitution to serve as a
guide.
To all those who keep insisting on Nigerian
sovereignty and our local laws, let me
clarify the one big mistake many people
make. Fifa is not the United Nations,
which is an international organisation of
countries.
Nigeria as a country is not a member of
Fifa, it is the Nigeria Football Federation
that is a member of Fifa and all members
subscribe to the statutes of Fifa, and
that is why Palestine, Kosovo and Hong
Kong can be members of Fifa.
We have been banned, unbanned,
suspended and each time, we always
believe we can cut corners. No you cannot
operate outside the rules and statutes.
We can run our political system the way
we want but we cannot create political
parties in the Nigeria Football Federation
because that is what we are trying to do
by having two congresses.
My advice to all those who claim to be
“football stakeholders” and the two
political parties, “Maigari faction” and
“Giwa faction” is to take the part of
honour and work together to have a new
election, as advised by Fifa, so that
whoever emerges can focus on building on
the gains of the last four years.
I still think Nigeria deserves a visionary
leader. I want Chris Giwa to show
Nigerians and the voting congress that he
is “the one” and let’s share his vison and
perhaps he will get properly elected or
someone else gets elected. In the end, the
development and advancement of Nigerian
football is more important than the
individual aspirations of anybody.
The time to stop making fools of ourselves
is now as we have become the laughing
stock of the football world, unless
Nollywood can turn this script into the
comedy that it is.
We have produced some of the best
professional football players and teams,
but sadly our leaders have shown
themselves to be very unprofessional.
Nigeria will be banned on Monday, 8
September, 2014 by Fifa if we do not stop
all the grandstanding; the lure of the
glass house, which is now the madness of
the burnt house, will become the regrets
of the banned house.





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