President Muhammadu Buhari is said to be in support of the Supreme Court’s ruling that sacked Melvin Amaju Pinnick as president of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), and the directive from minister of sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung reportedly came after consent from the nation’s number one citizen.
Startling latest information on the NFF saga has it on authority that Dalung issued a directive ordering Pinnick and his executive committee members to vacate office only after getting approval from Buhari.
Consequently, Dalung only made the directive public after he received full blessings and approval of President Buhari, then ordered Pinnick and his board members to comply with last month’s Supreme Court ruling which deposed them.
The report states further that President Buhari is also aware that the move to abide by the orders of the country’s highest court could see Nigeria coming under a FIFA ban.
A credible source disclosed on Wednesday: “The minister ensured he got the approval of the president before he ordered the NFF to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.
“The president approved for the minister to get Pinnick’s executive committee to step aside in accordance with the court order; even when he was told that the consequence would be a FIFA ban.”
NFF’s lawyer, Festus Keyamo warned of doom for Nigeria football after his clients were replaced by Chris Giwa and his group at the helm of the country’s football ruling body.
Keyamo boasted: “Chris Giwa and his friends are on a journey to nowhere. It will end the way it started.”
While the lawyer criticised the role played by Dalung in the crisis, on Wednesday sought an order from a Federal High Court in Jos to set aside an interim order that installed Chris Giwa as NFF president.
Top officials of the deposed NFF leadership are in Jos, with confidence they will get their way to return to take charge of The Glasshouse.
Such is their confidence that they have already planned an emergency congress in Abuja on Sunday to be followed by an executive committee meeting the next day.
Efforts by this group to meet with government officials at the presidential villa in Abuja on Monday were futile, as a spokesman simply ordered them to revert to Dalung, who they have widely knocked for the latest crisis to rock the NFF.
Rumours that the Chris Giwa group will not be in office on Tuesday because of “orders from above” turned out to be the usual lies as the group went about their business unhindered.
Giwa will address a world press conference on Friday to shed light on several vexed issues concerning Nigeria football.
