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The deed has finally been done.

The men who are bigger than the rest of us; those above the law of the land, had their way on Thursday.

Aminu Maigari, the
acting vice chairman of the Nigeria Football Federation who during the
debate by presidential candidates in Abuja two weeks ago confessed he
did not know the number of football clubs in Nigeria’s different
leagues, has been confirmed in the saddle.

Now Maigari and his team, including the invisible puppeteer with links to world football governing body,

FIFA, bestride the
darkening Nigerian football firmament like Colossus and we ‘petty’ men
walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find our dearly beloved
game of football destroyed.

Indeed, these are
ominous time with vultures are circling over Nigerian football. The
election of last Thursday will prove whether we still have laws in this
country and whether those laws are subordinate to those of FIFA.

It is a matter for
serious concern that the head of the electoral committee, which
conducted the election, is a lawyer and that he wilfully ignored at
least three subsisting court orders demanding a stay of action.

Anyway, the outcome
of the election has not surprised anyone particularly those of us who
had seen the writing on the wall since Sani Lulu first began ‘working’
on the federation’s statutes two years ago.

I had predicted
here that there was no way a good was going to come out of the process
given the shenanigans of Maigari and his team and the obvious
preference of FIFA for the maintenance of the status quo.

Two days before the
elections I sent an email to Pekka Odriozola, FIFA’s acting Head of
Media. I put the following questions to him

1. Does FIFA acknowledge receipt of the two letters from Odegbami?

2. What is FIFA’s
official position on the election? Is it in support of it holding
despite the issues raised in the Odegbami letter or is it in favour of
the state FA chairmen standing election first before participating in
the national election?

3. If FIFA is in support of the election, on what basis is it in support of it?

4. Does FIFA
believe that justice would have been done if as Odegbami has pointed
out, men who were elected for four-year tenure stay for eight years in
office?

5. Should the
Nigerian government decide to intervene given the tension being
generated by the election in the football community in Nigeria by
ordering through the National Sports Commission that state FA chairmen
first renew their mandate, what step is FIFA likely to take?

He was evasive in his reply.

Rather than address the issues raised he merely stated that:

“One of FIFA’s
duties is to ensure the independence of the Member Associations from
external interference and to ensure that the football family in each
country can have the best possible conditions to develop the game. That
is the reason why we directly monitor the situation in each FIFA member
association that they comply with their statutes.

“As such FIFA will
also be present as an observer on Thursday when the election in Nigeria
will take place to monitor the process and to verify that it is
conducted in accordance with the NFF statutes.

Men without ideas

This reply finally
confirmed my long held view, which I have stated here on several
occasions that the world football body was not interested in the
development of football in this country but is more interested in
maintaining Sepp Blatter’s cronies and their men Friday in power.

Whichever way we
look at it, football is doomed in this country. I have assessed the men
elected into the board and without trying to diminish them in any way;
none of them has the needed knowledge to take the game to the next
level. For the most part, they are the same men who refused to yield to
commonsense and test their popularity by conducting elections into the
state football associations.

We are also not
aware that any of them is an accomplished manager of men and resources
who can bring their administrative acumen to bear on issues surrounding
the running of football.

For those who made
jest of Segun Odegbami and other former Nigerian internationals
insisting that having played the game was no criterion for wanting to
administer the game, what have they got to say about some of these men
one of whom has been chairman of a club in the Nigerian Premier league,
which won the CAF Champions League back to back and failed to leverage
on that success to the extent that during the last Super Four
tournament in Ijebu Ode, players of the club nearly boycotted a match
in protest over unpaid allowances.