NFF Crisis: Minister Asks Odegbami, Owumi to Bury Hatchet

Sports Minister Bolaji Abdulahi

Supervising Sports Minister Bolaji Abdulahi, Tuesday made a passionate appeal to the Chief Olusegun Odegbami faction to sheath its sword and recognize the Aminu Maigari-board as the de facto faction running the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

Abdulahi had recently brokered a truce where Sam Sam Jaja and Ray Nnaji agreed to halt all court processes challenging the legal status of the NFF board in a bid to thaw the cascading crisis rocking the ‘Glasshouse’.

On the second day of the Senate Hearing on the Downward Trends in Nigerian Football, the minister who also doubles as the Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC) got a standing ovation, when he disclosed his intention to reach out and even ‘prostrate’ to Odegbami to embrace truce for the good of Nigeria football development.

“I have never known Maigari until I came to the NSC. In the interest of Nigeria, I want to appeal to Odegbami, Davidson Owumi, Japhet Tenebe and Harrison Jalla, to let us forget this bickering and move forward for the sake of our football. I won’t even mind to personally go and meet Odegbami and prostrate before him if that will lead to peace,” Abdulahi said.

It was apparent that former international winger, Odegbami, was still seething from his disqualification from the election that produced Maigari in 2010, when he told the Senate hearing that there would be “no peace without justice”.

While presenting his papers, Odegbami had insisted that the order of Justice Donatus Okorowo of January 20 which declared NFF as illegal must be obeyed and the rule of law respected.

It was Jalla, who originally secured a court injunction barring the NFF election from being held, following the non recognition of his National Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF) faction as the recognized body in Nigeria.

And the act of contempt against the court order that prompted Justice Okon Abang of a Federal High Court Lagos, to initially sack the NFF Board and forced FIFA to ban Nigeria on October 8, 2010.

Owumi on his part has an issue with the NFF board for ratifying the recommendation of the Ibidapo-Obe Commission which disqualified him from standing for election to the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) which produced his arch rival, Victor Rumson Baribote as the chairman.

Abdulahi was not the lone voice that appealed to the factions, he had a supporter in Chairman Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Adamu Gumba.

Gumba told the aggrieved factions to bury their differences and build strong football institutions which all Nigerians will be proud of.

He also asked Maigari to bring all the factions to a meeting and promptly communicate the outcome of the reconciliation to the Senate and House.