By Ikeddy Isiuzo
THIS piece is going to press 72 hours before the elections in Khartoum, in which Nigeria’s Ibrahim Galadima is a candidate. The concern here is not whether he wins or not. I am more bothered about the way we are, the way we elect to be and the consequences for Nigeria.

Galadima was a late entrant to the contest for one of the CAF seats and a possible place in FIFA. The story was going well, except that some knew that the circumstances of Galadima’s candidacy did not give room for a good consideration of his chances at the elections and the apparent possibilities.

Nigerians were given the impression that the seat in contention was a Nigerian slot. There was nothing of the sort. A further impression was that Dr. Amos Adamu, whose problems in FIFA, resulted in the vacancy, held his position on behalf of Nigeria.

It is on record that only Dr. Adamu was in the best position to explain how he won places in CAF and FIFA. Those who sought to replace him suffered from a poor knowledge of the workings of CAF and FIFA, contrary to claims that they had contacts that will gain the seats for Galadima whose candidacy generated controversies right from the start.

Was it right to have named a replacement for Dr. Adamu while his case was still on appeal? Some thought Dr. Adamu had no case and that CAF should have declared his seat vacant though his tenure expires in 2013. CAF thought differently, knowing that an Adamu victory at the Court of Arbitration for Sports could put it in a fix.

Those who want Adamu to vacate the CAF seat are confusing it with the FIFA seat which expired; hence, anyone who deems himself qualified could contest for it. After the initial rush for the CAF seat, Nigeria reversed to the FIFA slot. Who started this project and what was the thinking?

We were told it was Nigeria’s project and it must succeed. Still from the beginning, it was built on a faulty foundation. The Nigeria Football Association was forced to support Galadima’s candidacy. Did we think the world was unaware of this?

Only two weeks ago, Information Minister, Mr. Labaran Maku said the Federal Government was unaware of Galadima’s candidacy. How is this possible for an election that we were told was a Nigerian project? Where is the lobbying that is supposed to come from government?

Supposed promoters of the Galadima candidacy spent the past few weeks exposing weaknesses of the exercise, which they thought, would benefit from strident criticisms of Dr.  Adamu’s decision to appeal the FIFA decision. They want Dr. Adamu to withdraw the case, to prove his support for Galadima. When did they know the support was important?

How were they going to get it when they are barely on nodding terms with Dr. Adamu? Did they have to wait until they got to Khartoum to know this?

The discordant views from home worked against Galadima more than lack of support from others. Without firm grounds at home, he was in trouble from the beginning.

A laughable development in the entire process is the discovery of Dr. Adamu as the course of the challenges the candidate faced. There are times that we ascribe too reach to Dr. Adamu. This attitude has always provided grounds for people to cover their failures.

There is always someone to blame. How could he tell CAF President Isa Hayatou what to do? Is it reasonable to expect that Dr. Adamu will not fight if he thought he had a chance to restore his honour? Does he not have a right to fight for his name? Was the expectation that Galadima’s election would be more important to Dr. Adamu than his name?

Did the promoters of the Galadima effort go through any serious analysis of his chances and the work elections at this level require? I think they were too busy talking to themselves, praising the candidate and believing that his chances were bright.

I heard that in CAF, where everyone looks for the slightest defect of a candidate, possible voters were asking whether this Galadima was different from the one his members practically ejected from his chairmanship of the NFA. If Nigerians felt he was not good enough to manage their football is he the best candidate they could send to Africa.

When we make evaluation of the efforts in Khartoum, we will note that we were so subsumed in race to replace Dr. Adamu, supposedly to retain Nigeria’s slot that we never thought through the processes that could grant success in the election.

However, haven started by sharing blames his supporters have limited their chances to make a success of a project they never supported, contrary to all the noise.

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