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As Nigerians grieve
over their national team’s ouster from the World Cup, one group of
Nigerians would at this point be feeling the loss more than the rest of
us.

That group is the
executive committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). NFF
president, Sani Lulu must be cursing his luck that our Eagles have
booked an early flight home from South Africa. He must be in pains
right now but not for the same reason as the rest of us.

Lulu knows that
with the world Cup over for Nigeria, his game is up. He knows that his
carefully crafted plan of sneaking back into office when his tenure
expires in August is in danger of unravelling.

While the Eagles
were in South Africa, Lulu’s second term machine was grinding on with
his Man Friday, Barrister Mustapha, who was appointed head of the
electoral committee, taking charge.

Such has been
Lulu’s preoccupation with returning to office that he willfully
imperilled Nigeria’s preparation for the World Cup through inordinate
ambition and carelessness.

While his more
competent and forward looking counterparts were putting plans and
structures in place for successful outing at the Mundial, Lulu decided
that the proper thing to do was to “retouch” the NFF statutes. Between
2006, when he was elected as boss of the NFF, and now, Lulu has amended
the statutes of the federation three times.

Sleight of hand

While there’s
nothing wrong with amending the laws governing how a body is run, the
substance of such amendment becomes important when foul play is
suspected. In the case of the new statutes, which Lulu has crafted,
there is evidence to suggest that the NFF boss is bent on returning to
office by improper means. A pointer is the provision of article 21, m,
which states that:

“Each State
Football shall have its elective congress in November/December
succeeding the elective congress of the Federation within the senior
FIFA World Cup year”.

This provision
appears harmless until you understand the intention of the NFF
President. Under the 2004 statutes approved by the General Assembly of
the NFF (then NFA) in December 2004 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and
which provided guidelines for the elections that produced Lulu as NFF
President, elections were held at the various constituencies- Local
Government Football Councils, States Football Associations and the
Zones. It was these delegates who then voted Lulu into office.

Logically
therefore, you would expect that before elections into the presidency
of the NFF, those who elect the president should themselves be elected
into office first. But Lulu had a different idea hence the provision of
article 21 above. With this provision, Lulu has tactfully extended the
tenure of the chairmen of state football associations in a bid to get
them to line up behind him.

The implication of
this action is that the same set of officials who voted him into office
in 2006 will be the same people to re-elect him without they themselves
being subjected to the electoral process. It was thus no surprise that
we saw that huge jamboree in South Africa, where Lulu took all state FA
Chairmen to ‘enjoy’ the World Cup. It was an advance payment of sorts
for the job they will be doing for him in August. The balance would be
paid later.

Again, to ensure
that nothing is left to chance, Lulu in the 2010 statutes, pruned the
number of delegates who will vote at the election in August from 101 to
44. With the 37 State FA chairmen whom he has graciously taken to the
World Cup lining up behind him, there is no prize for guessing who will
win the election.

It took the efforts
of Segun Odegbami, former Nigeria international and one-time member,
who is running for the NFF presidency to checkmate Lulu. The NFF boss
has tactfully expunged that clause but is still keeping the statutes
close to his chest. Even the FA chairmen he wants to use as pawns have
not been informed of this latest development.

Rendering account

As of today, Lulu
has not made the 2010 statutes available to all members of the
federation, yet he insists on going ahead with elections in a month’s
time. Only this week Mustapha released a list of candidates who have
returned their forms. Expectably, only Lulu was the candidate for the
presidency! Ordinarily, one should not be bothered whether Lulu wanted
two or ten terms in office. As a Nigerian he is entitled to aspire to
any public office. However, given his record of performance in the last
four years he has been Nigeria’s FA boss, I do not think Nigerian
football needs another dose of his asphyxiating incompetence.

Now, that the World
Cup is over for us, attention should be focused squarely on Lulu and
his cronies. He should be forced to make the contents of the 2010
statutes public for Nigerians to see. More importantly, Sports Minister
and National Sports Commission (NSC) chairman, Ibrahim Bio, should ask
them to render an account of the money they received from the Nigerian
government.