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Lagos-based lawyer
and rights activist, Jiti Ogunye, has filed a suit against the Nigeria
Football Federation (NFF) at a Federal High Court in Lagos, claiming
that the NFF is function in violation of a court order.

According to the
petition filed by Ogunye, the Aminu Maigari-led executive committee of
the NFF is unconstitutional especially as the (August 26) election that
ushered them into the NFF board had been nullified by a subsisting
court order.

Joined as
respondents to the suit are the Nigeria Football Association, the
Registered Trustees of the National Association of Nigerian Footballers
(NANF), the Inspector-General of Police, the Attorney-General of the
Federation and seven others as defendants.

The association had
filed a suit before Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in
Lagos to stop the conduct of the election into the board of the
football body which was initially scheduled for August 21.

As a result, Abang
restrained parties to the suit from going ahead with the elections
pending the determination of the suit. This order was however violated
as elections still went ahead on August 26 which prompted NANF to file
contempt proceedings against all parties involved in the polls which
ushered in the present board.

The association however withdrew the case on October 25 enabling the board led by Maigari to return to office.

Unconstitutional

But Ogunye insists
that Abang did not vacate the order nullifying the election, adding
that the purported resumption of office by the NFF chiefs was
unconstitutional.

As a result, the
lawyer is urging the Federal High Court to declare that the order of
annulment of the election is still in force and cannot be varied or
discharged without recourse to the court by the football body.

He also wants the
court to compel the Inspector General of Police, as well as the
Attorney General of the Federation to enforce the orders of the court,
along with an injunction order, restraining members and officers of the
football body from parading themselves as duly elected officers and
members of the football body on the basis of the annulled election.

“NFF must not be
allowed to ridicule our courts, by disobeying an order that it should
not conduct its election, and disobeying the court a second time by
going back to exercise a mandate that was obtained from that election,
when the election had been annulled,” read part of Odunye’s petition.

However, no date has yet been fixed for the hearing.