Aisha cries foul over electoral chairman

By Jacob Ajom
A memo, purportedly written by the chairman of the NFA electoral committee, Abdulkareem Mustapha directing all state FAs to nominate not more than one candidate for the forthcoming board elections has sparked off a fresh crisis that could see the entire process truncated.

Some aggrieved Nigerians interested in the elections are crying blue murder as they view the directive as not only against the election guidelines but also as an action which portrays the chairman as acting out  a script to deny credible Nigerians the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the growth of football in the country. The likes of Adegboye Onigbinde, Segun Odegbami, among others have all been denied nominations by their states because of the directive.
One of the aggrieved Nigerians, Aisha Falode yesterday addressed the sporting press in Lagos where she called for the outright dissolution of the electoral committee and more importantly, she did not see the chairman of the committee as capable of organising a credible election if he could not interpret the guidelines as approved by the NFA congress in 2009.

“There is nowhere in the guidelines where it is said a state cannot endorse more than one candidate,” Aisha said, adding that, “look at the timing of the directive which is coming 24 hours to the deadline on the submission of forms. It is unacceptable. Whose agenda is he pursuing?”

Quoting copiously from the NFA election guidelines, Aisha said, “Article 4.4 states that ‘Nothing in these guidelines shall be construed as precluding any state FA or other member(s) of the NFA from endorsing more than one candidate. There is nothing too legalistic for the ordinary man not to understand.”

Falode also said the election committee chairman quoted article 7 of the guidelines in supporting his directive to the state FAs. “Article seven only talks on federal character and it is not ambiguous either.

It simply states that (a) no geopolitical zone shall produce more than two executive committee members and (b) no state shall produce more than one executive committee member. This, to me does not limit the number of candidates but those who can get in from a particular zone or state as the case may be. If states are being asked for one candidate each, then there should be no need for the elections”

Fundamentally, the ace broadcaster called for a total clean up. She said, “I believe with the clean up in the FA a new body be constituted by the new NFA board to organise the elections. The process should start from the states before the national level as all the state Fas have outspent their tenures. I cannot imagine those whose tenures have expired to nominate people for an election that is supposed to usher in a new dawn for our football.”