By Mark Baber
September 4 – FIFA has again stepped into the Nigerian football morass in a further attempt to bring sanity to the troubled federation which has seen rival factions emerge, both claiming leadership. The Giwa faction claims Chris Giwa was fairly elected whilst Aminu Maigari was under arrest by security forces. The Maigari faction was planning to hold elections today and regards Giwa as an interloper.
In a statement FIFA said its Emergency Committee had sent a letter to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) “confirming that the NFF will be suspended with immediate effect should there still be persons claiming to have been elected to NFF positions on 26 August 2014 and occupying their offices on Monday, 8 September 2014 at 08.00 (Central European Time).”
FIFA explains the background to their intervention, saying: “The decision follows events linked to the NFF general assembly held on 26 August 2014. While the said general assembly was duly convened by the NFF Executive Committee to adopt a new roadmap leading to the NFF elections, some members proceeded to hold elections in the absence of the NFF President, who was being held by security forces for questioning.”
“In a letter sent on 29 August 2014, FIFA confirmed that it would not recognise the results of the aforementioned elections and that the matter would be brought to the respective FIFA bodies should there still be persons claiming to have been elected and occupying the NFF offices at midnight on 1 September 2014. On expiry of the deadline, some people were still claiming to have been elected and were occupying the NFF premises.”
FIFA is also insisting that, “The NFF Executive Committee as it was composed on 25 August 2014, meaning under the presidency of Aminu Maigari, should then convene as soon as possible a first extraordinary general assembly to elect the members of the electoral committee and a second extraordinary general assembly in the shortest time possible allowed by law in order to proceed with the elections of new NFF office-bearers.”
Hearings have been held by the House of Representatives Committee on Sports chaired by Godfrey Gaya in an attempt to stave off a ban and a statement is expected from Gaya today. It appears likely Gaya and FIFA will be singing form the same hymn sheet in an attempt to resolve the situation and Gaya met with the delegates already gathered for the Elective Congress to ask them to delay today’s scheduled elections in order to allow the Chris Giwa group to participate.
Gaya told NFF board members and state FA chairmen, “To every law abiding person, the Congress is the supreme organ and the House of Representatives believes that right things should be done and only the right things are good enough for Nigeria.
“We have listened to all parties and we are due to address Nigerians by 11am on Thursday (today), September 4 when I came by the letter from FIFA and decided to meet with you, members of the NFF Congress to put heads together on how to advance football”.
Gaya also gave an assurance no attempt would be made by the government harrass delegates as “Nigeria is not a police state and we cannot as a responsible legislature permit any citizen or group to be denied the right to meet.”
In his statement to the House of Representatives Committee Giwa said: “There is a procedure for doing things everywhere and that is why there is an Appeals Committee for anybody who feels aggrieved to go and seek redress and where you are not satisfied, there is the CAS and if they rule today that the election is invalid I want to assure you that I and my members will not remain in that office for one more minute.”
The coming days will be a decisive in seeing if FIFA’s attempt to bang heads together will succeed in persuading Giwa to step down, in ensuring new elections are held and sanity restored or if Nigeria will be banned from international football and lose its right to defend the African Cup of Nations title.
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