By Harry Awurumibe, Abuja Football-loving Nigerians have hailed the Federal Government’s recognition of the Amaju Melvin Pinnick-led Executive Board as the authentic leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation ( NFF) in a tweet earlier this Monday, August 20, 2018, few minutes before the 12 pm deadline given by the world football governing body, FIFA for the resolution of the leadership tussle in the Nigerian football or the country will be banned.
Expectedly, the Federal Government through, Mr Laolu Akande, Special Assistant to Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Public Communications has revealed that it had already informed FIFA of the decision that the Nigerian government recognise the Pinnick-led NFF Executive Board as the authentic leadership.
This singular pronouncement from the Federal Government has promptly halted FIFA’s hammer and also resolved the NFF leadership tussle which has festered for three years now but assumed a dangerous dimension on July 2, 2018 when Ambassador Chris Giwa backed by Nigerian Police took control of the NFF secretariat after the Sports Minister, Mr Solomon Dalung, directed the NFF to comply with a Supreme Court ruling which ordered both parties to go back to the Lower Court in Jos where the case originated from.
But some stakeholders have risen in support of the political solution to the matter by the Federal Government doing the needful which has resulted in Nigeria escaping FIFA ban as earlier pronounced.
Mr. Alphonsus Ofuku who owns a football academy in Agbani, Enugu state commended the government for the validation of Pinnick-led NFF board as demanded by FIFA. ” I am one of the happiest persons in Nigeria today to hear that FIFA will no longer ban Nigeria. I must thank government for the intervention”, he said.
For Alhaji Sikiru Ajijola, an ardent football follower, the Federal Government has saved Nigeria and Nigerians huge embarrassment in the comity of nations if the FIFA ban was allowed to come into effect today, adding that” Nigerian youth would have been hard hit by the ban”.
Speaking in the same vein, Mallam Nasir Alkali of Sunnyville Estate, Lokogoma, Abuja said that the FIFA ban is an ill-wind which would not have benefitted any Nigerian hence he supports Federal Government’s intervention in the dispute.
Meanwhile the FIFA-recognized NFF General Secretary, Mohammed Sanusi Monday qconfirmed that he has been given back effective control of the NFFsecretariat but
it remains to be seen from Thursday when work resumes if normal office activities will return after several weeks of skeletal services as the staff have been in and out of duty posts.
