Days after his impeachment from the Nigeria Football Association, Amanze Uchegbulam is full of praises for Patrick Ekeji, the Director-General of the National Sports Commission and a member of the Presidential Task Force that engineered the on-going changes in the football house.
Why?

Amaju Pinnick

Ekeji, in his address to the just concluded FA Congress, said that Sani Lulu, Uchegbulam and Taiwo Ogunjobi were impeached because of “insubordination”.

That contrasted with the letter sports minister Ibrahim Bio took to FIFA in South Africa or the reasons given by the board members of the FA for impeaching them. The members had alleged fraudulent practices.

The minister had pleaded with the FA to postpone their August elections to enable them to concentrate on the World Cup. Rather than heed that they took the letter to FIFA and the football ruling body warned of interference. The minister and Ekeji were scandalized that the FA Executives could go to that length to protect their positions.

That development partly informed  PTF ‘s advice to President Jonathan to pull Nigeria out from FIFA events for two years so that Nigeria could use the period to reorganize football administration. Apparently, the PTF members did not know that changes could be achieved through the Congress rather than total withdrawal from football with it’s attendant consequences.

“I sincerely thank Ekeji for throwing light on the reasons why we were impeached. More than ten FA Chairmen have called me to express concern over the reasons first given.

That was why I made a statement to clear myself because I never dealt with financial matters. I thank Ekeji for saying that we were removed because of insubordination.

The only thing is that I want to know where I erred or committed any act of insubordination. I was loyal to the body, loyal to the President and loyal to the system. Whose directives did I,  as a person or as Vice President, counter or ignore? It is important to know because my name is important to me. I have a reputation I don’t want to be tarnished for no just reason. It is not fair. I never disbursed a kobo or approved any job as Vice President and I was never in any position to go against official directives, so where were the possibilities of acts of insubordination?”