Nigeria: Galadima Calls for a Review of His Sack

Daily Independent (Lagos)

Tony Ezimakor

16 June 2011

Abuja — Former Chairman of Nigeria Football Association (NFA) Ibrahim Galadima has warned that any measures adopted to resolve the crises in Nigeria football would only amount to window-dressing if it fails to do a thorough review of how he was booted out of office in 2005.

Galadima who spoke on phone from his home in Kano said such palliative measures would only serve a temporary end while leaving the problem to seethe, only to resurface in the future.

He said that reasons advanced by those who booted him out was that he was not wanted by the government. According to him individuals in the corridors of power then in 2005 displayed impunity in the name of government and set the part for the destructive politics and bitterness now in football.

“Any measures that fail to review how I was removed from office in 2005 would be palliative; a mere window dressing, which will only address the problem at the surface. That is not what we need. We have to go back in time to 2005 when all these things started. Then, the reasons they gave was that I was not wanted by government. The government of course is faceless so people acted with impunity in the name of government and destroyed the peace in our football” Galadima said.

The former NFA boss maintained that the situation in Nigeria football is worrisome and that an all encompassing investigation into what led to the ugly situation would be needed for peace and progress to return to the sector.

“When I was removed they claimed that it was government. Sani Lulu was brought in and today he wrote a petition to CAF that he was removed by the same government. So my view is that we have to really go back to where it began to seek for answers to this incessant problem in our football.

It is recalled that following the exit of the Super Eagles from Germany 2006 World Cup qualifiers, a succession of events backed by Samaila Sambawa and Bala Bawa Ka’oje, then ministers and chairmen of National Sport Commission as well as then DG of NSC, Amos Adamu, set up an ugly tussle in NFA that resulted in the removal of Galadima. The group went as far as using the sacked former General Secretary of FIFA Urs Linsi to commit error that has continued to haunt the sector.

Urs Linsi was eventually sacked from FIFA the same as Lulu and his men.

Now Galadima believes that for peace to rain in football effort should be made to trace the problem to its root.

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