Hold sports minister, Enoh, responsible for crisis, illegality in NFF –Aggrieved Nigerians speak out

Hold sports minister, Enoh, responsible for crisis, illegality in NFF –Aggrieved Nigerians speak out

Nigerian football-lovers at home and in the Diaspora are pointing accusing fingers at the Minister of Sports, Hon John Enoh over the festering crisis and illegality that have hit the Nigeria Football Federation and football administration recently.

The minister, at a face-saving meeting with the NFF over Nigeria’s qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in USA, Canada and Mexico, a couple of days ago, attempted to play the ostrich when he urged the NFF to address issues that have hindered high performances and growth of Nigerian football.

But a Nigerian and member of the late Chief Oyuiki Obaseki Interim Management Committee, based in the USA, Alhaji Kasali Obanoyen says the minister is trying to shy away from the real albatross hindering the growth of football in the country.

Obanoyen insists that the NFF was/is illegal, adding that what was known to the Nigerian law was the Nigeria Football Association, (NFA) urging the minister to address the issue, to ensure the smooth administration of football in Nigeria, which, he says, had been in an epileptic state because of the very clear illegal status of the NFF.

Rather than waste his energy on the statute of the NFF and squander tax payers’ money on a World Cup jamboree which Nigeria can’t win, Obanoyen calls on Enoh to ensure that the football body obeys the landmark judgment of Nigeria’s apex court , the Supreme Court who endorsed judgement of Justice Donatus Okorowo of the Abuja High Court, which outrightly declared the NFF illegal in 2010 and was never appealed

“The Sports Minister should be held liable for the crisis in the NFF,” Obanoyen said. “I’m afraid that he may end up most unsung as Sports Minister. He pretends not to know the genesis of the problem rocking our football.

“Enoh’s predecessor, Sunday Dare started the move to free football from the jackboots of the cabal that had held the sport by the jugular when he (Dare) part obeyed the Supreme Court judgment that declared the League Management Company, a baby of illegal NFF, ‘fraudulent and Supreme Court backed Okorowo judgement that ‘Perpetually banned the NFF from having anything to do with administration of football in Nigeria’.

:The ACT in Nigeria that rules football is the NFA ACT except there must be an endless honey in the football pot for Ministers, like the current, to ignore the real source of our football.”

Obanoyen continues: “Let’s part quote aspect of this judgment :While delivering the judgment in suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/179/2010, Justice Okorowo stated: “…the Nigeria Football Association was established under Section 1 of the Nigeria Football Association Act as a body corporate with perpetual succession and common seal with power to sue and be sued.

“By these provisions, it is the only body recognised by Nigerian Law to manage football. The Law did not make reference to it as Nigeria Football Federation. The name under which it is charged to manage football under the Law is Nigeria Football Association. It has no power to address itself as Nigeria Football Federation. And the document titled Nigeria Football Federation Statute, which purports to confer the name Nigeria Football Federation to Nigeria Football Association is not a codified Law under the Laws of Federation of Nigeria. It is therefore illegal for the Nigeria Football Association to answer another name other than the name by which it is created as a legal entity.”

Obanoyen also, in light of above quote,faults the minister’s move regarding the expansion of the NFF congress, saying the right step should have been to address the legal status of the NFF as pronounced by the Supreme Court judgements

“I think the minister is taking the wrong step and it shows that the man has not even read a single football file on his table because if he had, he should know that increasing the congress is not the issue. It won’t make NFF legal. It won’t stop the cabal eating football money. That’s why Nigeria, our dear countr is worse for it, taking one step forward and six steps backward in football.”

Football lawyer, Uche Onochie agrees to Obanoyen’s submission insisting that the minister has the golden opportunity to be a hero by addressing the legal status of the NFF.

Onochie said: “Pinnic Amaju and Ibrahim Gusau were never in office in the eye of the Nigerian law, yet these are the people the minister is hobnobbing with. The law of the land recognizes the NFA ACT and not NFF.”

Following Justice Okorowo’s judgment and a court affidavit deposed to by Amini Maigari through the NFF lawyer, Akin Olujimi, SAN, in which Aminu declared in the affidavit that the NFF is different from the NFA, the Federal Ministry of Justice, in a subsequent clarification letter to the then Director-General, National Sports Commission on June 2, 2011, noted that the NFF was unknown to the laws of the land, stating, “The Nigeria Football Association Act 1990 (aka Decree 101) has neither been repealed nor amended, it remains the valid legal instrument for the administration of football in Nigeria.”

The Ministry’s letter added: “In the light of the above recognition of the private status of the NFF, the ordinary implication is that the body is not entitled to the receipt of statutory allocations from the Federal Government.

“The present situation suggests that the structure for the administration of football in Nigeria at the moment is legally unwieldy as the NFA, which is statutorily recognised is non-functional, while the NFF, which is not a creation of our laws, is, from all indications, running football in the country and receiving public funds albeit unconstitutionally.”

Despite the clarification by the justice ministry, the NFF continued to illegally draw money monthly from the government,and is not accountable to render any report to the Accountant General or Auditor of the Federation.

Chairman of the Professional Footballers Association, Harrison Jalla also urges the Sports Minister, Enoh, to wade into the lingering legal battles in football. “With good intent , he can do a huge favour to Nigeria and the government he serves”

Most football analysts are disturbed that the minister seems not to be in tune with the policy of the President Bola Tinubu’s government. For example , the government stated policy says no civil servant or Nigerian worker should earn dollars or any foreign currency as salary. . But under Hon Minister’s nose, the current General Secretary of the NFF, Dr Mohammed Sanusi earns $10,000 every month “Isn’t that why football dollars bonuses meant for our various national teams are hardly paid when due or illegally split,” former Super Eagles star said, anonymously.

He added: “The Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 prohibits Nigerians from being paid dollars as salaries, yet the NFF scribe earns more than the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Yet another football gurus says : “If the minister wants to etch his name in gold, he must address these issues in the interest of Nigerians to whom football is like a religion.

“Today, tongues are wagging about how the Presidential bail-out of N12 billion during the last Nations Cup in Cote d’Ivoire was allegedly mismanaged without accountability. And my candid advice to the Honourable Minister is that there is no way an illegal NFF can get it right running football in Nigeria. The least you can do is simply revert to NFA ACT. The contents within this noble ACT contain routes to a better life in Nigeria. And better football.