The embarrassing sacking of the NFF

But last week, Maigari’s sojourn at the NFF appeared to have come to a sudden end no thanks to the crude manipulation of our judiciary. The shabbily choreographed sequence of events began with a petition from the wife of a stakeholder to the High Court in Jos, Plateau state, apparently acting on orders from above. […]

But last week, Maigari’s sojourn at the NFF appeared to have come to a sudden end no thanks to the crude manipulation of our judiciary. The shabbily choreographed sequence of events began with a petition from the wife of a stakeholder to the High Court in Jos, Plateau state, apparently acting on orders from above. The court then effectively sacked the entire NFF Board by issuing a restraining order against all its members from carrying out any of their official functions until the suit before it was determined.  
One must immediately suspect the involvement of the government when even before the ink on the court order had dried, the newly appointed sports minister – for whom ignorance cannot honestly be an excuse if he had taken the few months he has been in office to study the files on the NFF – applied what appeared to be a Coup de Grace by appointing a caretaker to supervise the affairs at the Football House until the final determination of the suit, which, on these shores, could take eternity. The joke in this clumsy affair is that the minister claimed to be observing due process by respecting court orders, a virtue we all know is not exactly a forte of the current administration.
The involvement of government was apparent when the NFF president walked into the cold embrace of State Security Service operatives soon after he disembarked from the plane from Brazil and was effectively rendered incommunicado for the duration of the time it took the court order to come into effect. In the current dispensation, only the most vocal critics of the administration or Boko Haram suspects are given such rude treatment and not football technocrats. That was a new one.
Maigari’s treatment was especially curious in many respects because the Board he led was generally adjudged to have performed credibly well.  Under it, football in Nigeria appeared to be enjoying some renaissance barring the usual hiccups with the payment of players’ bonuses before major tournaments. Nigeria won the African Nations Cup for the first time since 1994 in South Africa in 2013. It also won the FIFA World Cup for U/17 boys, and not only qualified but performed credibly well at other events on the continent and globally. To many football fans therefore the events of the past week must have come as a rude shock as much as it did to the entire NFF Board.
The most annoying thing of it all is that the nation had travelled the same road before with embarrassing consequences for the authorities. FIFA is unambiguous about its rules, particularly Article 13, which frowns against government interference in the running of the affairs of its affiliate bodies like the NFF.
Member nations agree to imbibe the same statutes when they agree to be members of FIFA. It did not surprise anyone except the clowns in the Sports Ministry that FIFA immediately suspended Nigeria and insisted on the return of the sacked NFF Board.
FIFA may not exactly be a model of transparency or accountability; it may also have its well-documented ethical issues, but we must thank it for maintaining a crisis resolution system that terminates at the well-recognized International Court for Arbitration in Sports. It also insists on regular elections during which erring members of the affiliate bodies could be voted out. The next General Congress of the NFF is due next month so why the haste to harangue the Maigari-led Board out of office?
Today, as things stand, if the Court Order is not vacated, an entire generation of Nigerian youth stand to lose out from international competition beginning with the FIFA U/20 World Cup for women scheduled to hold in Canada next month. Nigeria may not also be there to defend the AFCON title it won two years ago when Morocco hosts the event next year. The qualifiers for that event are almost upon us.
 In trying to make sense out of the entire mess I contacted my usual friends in the sporting media and experienced a rude awakening. There were those who claimed the entire plot was hatched in Brazil after the Super Eagle’s coach Stephen Keshi complained to the Senate President David Mark that he could no longer work with the current Technical Committee of the NFF Board. Mark is thought to have communicated Keshi’s views to the presidency which subsequently triggered the chain of events.
Others claimed the decision to sack the Board was taken after a direct meeting between Keshi and the president, after which the sports minister was given appropriate directives. Whatever it was that transpired, FIFA has already laid down the gauntlet, and whoever is behind the sordid turn of events must now eat humble pie. And the annoying thing is that it is all so unnecessary. Why they could not wait for the NFF Congress next month to actualize whatever plans they had is beyond me. But if some people, somewhere, nursed the hope that the 14 millions dollars due Nigeria in appearance fees would be subsequently paid by FIFA to their emergency Caretaker Committee then they need to see a shrink for their naivety.  FIFA will not deal with any official outside the duly elected NFF that was crudely removed.
I also have my reservations on the attitude of Keshi. That he has done well with the support of the current NFF Board is not in doubt. It is his rebellious character that troubles me. I recall the problems he had with NFA Board, led by late Anthony Ikazabor. Keshi it was, along with Samson Sia-Sia, who also ignited the crisis that led to the departure of Clemens Westerhof – easily our most successful foreign coach to date – after the 1994 World Cup hosted by the United States. Keshi had carried an injury into the tournament but insisted on playing ahead of Chidi Nwanu! But the Dutchman would have none of it.
Such an individual is not someone the presidency should pamper at the expense of an NFF with its present track record. And Keshi cannot also be totally absolved from the frequent squabbles for enhanced bonuses and appearance fees by the greedy players he chose to swim and sink with at the World Cup.
While agreeing that all the critical minders of the team could have handled the payments better, their attitude still contrasted sharply with the squads from Algeria and Greece. At the same time our players held the nation to ransom, the Greek team urged their government to channel their bonuses towards the construction of a national football centre of excellence. The Algerians donated theirs to the long suffering people of Palestine.    
 Yet even when scores of Nigerian fans who paid to watch the World Cup were massacred at two viewing centres, there was not a single collective message of solidarity from our national team under Keshi.  They neither dedicated their goals to the victims of the bombings in a symbolic gesture nor spared a thought for the missing girls from Chibok at any of their news conferences. Other national teams would have seized half the opportunity given the circumstances and the gravity of both tragedies. Not so for our team. It was all about their bonuses.
The present NFF does not deserve to be sacrificed for such a bunch of insensitive Nigerians, or their swollen-headed coach who is apparently carried away by his modest achievements.