The Nigeria Football Federation elections scheduled for Friday in Benin City is, at the moment, on the brink of being called off, which could lead the game in the country into full-blown crisis.
The major stumbling block is a court injunction brought by the Professional Footballers Association of Nigeria, which has put the elections on hold.
The splinter union of players had sought an expanded congress and executive committee for the NFF and insisted that their demands must be met.
The National Association of Nigerian Footballers, led by former player Harrison Jallah, took the NFF to court and obtained an injunction to stop the election.
In his ruling at the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 15, Justice Inyang Ekwo ordered the NFF elections to be put on hold and adjourned further proceedings until October 31, a full month after Friday’s proposed polls.
In the case with suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/1376/2022 brought by Jalla, Rumson Baribote and Austin Popo on behalf of the NANF against the NFF and sports minister Sunday Dare, the ex-footballers reminded the court that they had sought, in 2021, to have the NFF statutes amended and the executive committee and congress of the football body expanded.
There had been hope that the matter would be settled before the elections, but with just two days to go, there appears to be no solution in sight.
The case has not been withdrawn as had been speculated; instead there has been a warning that defiance of the court order could lead to jail terms.
As a result of the court order hovering over the elections, one of the 11 presidential candidates, Amanze Uchegbulam, announced his withdrawal yesterday and there is talk more could follow.
A meeting between the sports minister Sunday Dare and the presidential candidates was held in Abuja last night but the feelers from there suggest no solution was found.
While the minister and most of the candidates have been tight-lipped about the outcome of the meeting, one or two have dropped hints that it did not end well.
One described Nigerian football as a ‘war zone’ and reached a conclusion that it is no longer about competence and love for the game.
He lamented that the meeting was ‘a display of power, money and influence’, and added that he was considering withdrawing for his own safety and if the court case is not vacated or the ministry does not provide assurances.
Meanwhile, there was more unwanted drama this morning as lawyers to one of the PFAN members, one Seigha Obiene, said he would be returning to court over the NFF Annual General Assembly, which was held in Lagos in August.
Obiene is withdrawing a notice of discontinuance of a court order which had allowed the Congress to be held.
Without the discontinuance, the NFF AGA in Lagos, which set the September 30 date for the elections, would not have been legal.
Obiene, a member Bayelsa chapter of the PFAN, restored his court order yesterday in the Federal High Court, Yenagoa where he is seeking a new date for the hearing of the substantive matter.
According to PFAN task force leader Harrison Jalla, Obiene returned to court because the NFF did not meet their terms of agreement.
Obiene had obtained an interim order from the Federal High Court, Yenagoa on December 10, 2021 that led to the eight-month delay in the NFF Congress.
If the elections are not held on Friday, Nigerian football would be thrown into a crisis that would require FIFA’s intervention.
One solution would be to form a normalisation committee that would run the country’s football for as long as all the cases are settled.
This was done in Cameroon in 2017 after a lingering leadership crisis defied all other solutions.
The FIFA committee ran the Cameroon football federation’s daily affairs, drafted new statutes and organised elections for a new executive committee.
