Nigeria: Drama as Ekeji Meets NFF Board

Jude Opara

16 June 2011

Abuja — There was a mild drama yesterday at the Media Centre of the Abuja National Stadium when the Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC) Dr. Patrick Ekeji met with members of the board of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as part of his efforts to resolve the crisis that is rocking Nigerian football.

The meeting which began by 11am also had three former Secretaries General of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA), Mahmud Kadiri, Alhaji Sani Toro and Fanny Amun in attendance.

However, members of the NFF board came into the meeting like a group ready for a war as the chairman of the Technical Committee, Barrister Chris Green insisted that the National Anthem would not be sang unless members of the sporting media as well as other stakeholders who came to witness the meeting went out.

As soon as the Master of Ceremony of the event called for the recitation of the Nigerian National Anthem, Green charged saying “we don’t need any National Anthem, there will be no National Anthem here unless those who are not board members excused us, we thought we were coming to dialogue with the DG and not to be brought in the presence of all these people”.

In the same vein like a people who had taken a common position, another board member, Barrister Lai Adepoju said he was moving for an adjournment until their demand for a closed door meeting was granted.

“I want to move for an adjournment of this meeting until those who are not supposed to be here leave, we only got a letter from one Abdulahi Abba Yola, who claims to be a Special Assistant to the DG, and I also want to register that the letter inviting us referring to us as the ‘powerful’ NFF is derogatory”.

But after all these, Dr. Ekeji requested that everybody should stand up for the National Anthem after which the media and other stakeholders were asked to excuse the meeting.

Feelers from the closed door meeting suggested that the NFF who were faced with realties were begging the NSC to help beg the president of the National Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF) as well as the members of the parallel Nigeria Football Association (NFA) led by Jarret Tenebe to step down on their demand.

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