Nigeria Content Online

As the August 21
date for elections into the new board of the Nigeria Football
Federation (NFF) looms nearer, more calls are being made for the
dissolution of the electoral board. A candidate for the elections,
Aisha Folade, had last week called for the dissolution of the electoral
committee set up by the impeached President, Sani Lulu.

A more stringent
call has been made this around by Olajide Fashikun, Director, Sports
Development and Marketing, Nigeria Sports Development Incorporated, a
Nigerian sports marketing company based in Abuja. Fashikun, who is also
a former national athlete, wants the Abdulhakeem Mustapha-headed
electoral committee dissolved. He also wants the government agencies to
probe how the sum of N34million budgeted for an election with less than
a 100 delegates is to be spent. In a petition sent to the Presidency,
the Nigeria Sports Commission (NSC), NFF, EFFC, and other agencies,
Fashikun said: “The Chairman of the committee is a client of the NFF as
well as the personal lawyer of the impeached President, Lulu. He
defended the NFF Chairman in a suit at the start of his tenure that
challenged his election in 2006, ditto for the suit between Lulu and a
national newspaper, Daily Independent. It is morally wrong on this
ground for him to conduct an election involving the interest of his
client,” Fashikun wrote.

The former athlete
also alleged that Mustapha was one of the individuals sponsored by the
NFF to watch the World Cup in South Africa. “I have in my possession
official NFA documents that showed he was a member of the delegation.
The import here is obvious; he is already a biased umpire ab initio.
With the impeachment of his client, Lulu, it is not moral and
right-thinking for him to go ahead and preside over the same election
on the ground that he can be influenced to steer the ship of the
election in a pre-determined manner which will stain the final outcome
of the entire exercises.”

Fashikun also alleged that in a bid to perpetuate himself in power,
Lulu and other board members had worked out a well orchestrated plan to
beat all the 37 state Football Associations into line. The first,
according to him, was the alleged unwarranted and unearned N5million
Greek gift to each state football association as well as the
sponsorship of all State FA chairmen to Angola last January as well as
to the 2010 World Cup. “Many of the FA chairmen have over-run their
tenure and they have been donated extensions until 2014,” he said. “I
therefore, wish to humbly call on the government advance your statutory
powers, investigate and accordingly undertake the investigation of
these facts and respond adequately in the defence of public interest
and the national interest.” This is another major challenge that
elections for the board of the NFF faces and there may be the need to
postpone the elections so that when it is finally held, it will be
credible and usher in a new dawn of football administrators in the
country.