By Mark Baber
January 19 – The threatened occupation of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) Glass House HQ by the Chris Giwa faction fighting for leadership of the NFF didn’t take place last week as both Giwa and Amaju Pinnick were appearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in Lausanne on Friday in attempt to find settlement of the disputed elections into the executive board of the NFF.
The dispute arises out of disputed elections held on August 26 and September 30, 2014 – with Giwa the winner of the first and Pinnick the second. Giwa and his faction sat out the September 30 election, not least as they had secured a court order forbidding it from going ahead.
It was only through the intervention of FIFA, who threatened to ban the country from international football, that the September 30 election was held. Pinnick and his faction have since managed to cling on to power using their positions to deny claims of procedural irregularities in their election and to prevent an arbitration panel from being set up.
The Giwa faction statement, issued in the name of the “The Board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) under the leadership of Ambassador Chris Giwa” began with an apology “to Nigerians for the inability of the board to hold their meeting last Friday as widely explained in our last statement.”
According to the statement: “The reason is not far fetched. The substantive matter we filed at the Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS) in Lusanne in Switzerland came up for hearing. Parties were present including FIFA, the Amaju Pinnick faction and we, the Plaintiffs. It was billed for 14th and 15th January.
“Nigerians will appreciate when the Amaju Pinnick faction misled the court to turn down the preliminary reliefs we requested and made Nigerians to think the matter is closed. When the substantive matter came up, we put up our case in the astute believe in the Rule of Law and the course of non-violence.”
According to the statement: “By the grace of God, the board shall meet during the week after which we shall avail the nation of the plans to move our football out of the deep woods of not getting new kids on the bloc.”
It had been speculated that the failure of the Giwa faction to turn up was related to alleged threats they received, or the statement of Bottom of Form
Harrison Jalla, the President of the National Association of Nigeria Footballers who said the players union would “mobilise its members to dislodge this group from the Glass House if they make any further attempt to take the laws into their hands by occupying the Glass House.”
The case having been under consideration since September and the parties now having been heard, CAS will be making a decision on the validity of the various elections, based firstly on the regulations of the NFF and subsidiarily on the law of Nigeria, in the coming days.
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