Wild speculations are trailing the latest adjournment in the court case over the leadership tussle at Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), as a cross-section of observers fear it is just a way of delaying the matter until the forthcoming election of the soccer governing body.
While another view alleges that the Federal High Court in Jos might be aiding Nigeria in holding on for the youth female national team, Falconets to compete at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup before a global ban descends of the nation, a conspiracy theory that is linked to next month’s NFF Election is spreading.
With many issues already erupting ahead of the election of a new executive committee for the body, another school of thought reckons Ambassador Chris Giwa would not be able to lay claim to any presidential ambition once a new poll takes place.
All these permutations are rising in the wake of Wednesday’s decision by the Federal High Court in Jos to again adjourn hearing the matter of Giwa taking over as NFF president from Melvin Amaju Pinnick.
This comes after Pinnick, whose four-year tenure as NFF president will end on September 29, had filed a motion challenging the court’s ex-parte order which installed Giwa in office.
While ruling in the case between Yahaya Adama/Obinna Ogba and Aminu Maigari/Musa Ahmadu and two others, Justice Musa Kurya had on June 5 asked Pinnick’s NFF leadership to leave office.
His order had followed a Supreme Court judgment asking the lower court to again look at the matter between Yahaya group and Maigari’s group for determination.
However, Pinnick, through his counsel, Festus Keyamo, had on July 5 stormed the court with two motions.
They demanded vacation of the order, pending determination of a counter application challenging jurisdiction of the court to hear the case.
Unfortunately, the motions could not be heard, due to objection by counsel to Adama and others, Mr Ardzard, leading to the case’s adjournment until July 10.
When the case came up again on July 10, Keyamo’s representation claim for Maigari and Ahmadu, was challenged by Shangyula Samuel.
Samuel had told the court that he was the only appointed and briefed representative of the duo of Maigari and Ahmadu.
That argument took long, with Keyamo withdrawing his appearance for the duo and left to represent only Pinnick, leading the judge to adjourning the case to Sept 25 for hearing.
Kurya said he was already on vacation and could only sit when there is a directive from Chief Justice of the Federation, and the case was then fixed for hearing on Wednesday.
However, when the case came up, Festus Ukpe from Keyamo’s Chambers told the court he has three motions for filing before it and which would be done in the afternoon.
Ardzard had objected to the Ukpe’s application on the ground that the other counsel had not served them with copies of the motions.
Ukpe, in reply, said he intended to file later in the day and at the same serve all other counsels in the matter with copies of all the three motions.
After all arguments, Kurya later had to again adjourn the case to September 25, which is just four days to the next NFF Election.
He said this was to enable Pinnick’s counsel properly file his motions before the court and effect service to all the parties involved in the matter.
This is the second effort by Pinnick to ensure Giwa was stopped from ousting him, by seeking an outright vacation of the order issued by the court.
