By Patrick Omorodion

Football administrators in Nigeria, especially from late 1990s to date have always treated the Nigerian government with disdain whenever the same government which pays the bills of the football house tries to ask questions about how the monies are spent or why the money pumped into the game is not yielding the desired results.

Before late 1990s, football administration was  without rancour as the piper, that is the government of the day, dictated the tune. Government saw football, and still sees it, as the biggest unifying factor for a  country ever divided along religious, ethnic and political lines and therefore pumped in a lot of money to calm the people who forget their differences whenever their teams are playing.

However, when some administrators began to see the power of football and decided to seize it to their own selfish advantage rather than to the entire country, they found a way to cling on to power by arm-twisting the government which they sometimes intimidated with threats of sanctions from FIFA.

So it was in 2010 after the Sani Lulu-led Board got itself into hot waters by various acts for which some of the Board members are still visiting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to answer questions today.

Following the inglorious outing of the senior national team, the Super Eagles under the tutelage of Lars Lagerback at the 2010 World Cup, the president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had suggested that the country takes a rest from all FIFA organised competitions so as to put her house in order, but those who were already positioning themselves for a return to the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF Board flew a kite that FIFA could ban the country.

It was also touted that if the president didn’t reconsider the decision, his political fortunes in the 2011 general elections could be jeopardised. Being a politician, the president recanted and the football hawks rejoiced.

Their joy was however short-lived as the Board, in an in-house palace coup, impeached Lulu and installed a member of the old team, Alhaji Aminu Maigari who claimed he was sidelined by his erstwhile colleagues. The change expected from him, has however remained a mirage, as the only credential he holds close to his chest today is that “our teams are winning,” even though development is very little or non existent.

Under him, the Golden Eaglets won the U-17 World Cup in the UAE, Nigeria’s fourth title since the historic victory in China in 1985. Again in 2013, after 19 years in the wilderness, the Super Eagles, against all expectations, even to the Board now claiming credit, won the Africa Nations Cup in South Africa and added the 2014 World Cup qualification to it.

In the heat of the crisis that almost tore the NFF apart in 2010 and 2011, the NFF in an affidavit sworn at a Federal High Court, claimed that it was not a government agency or parastatal but a private organisation which only gets grant from the government. That was after changing its name from NFA to NFF.

Since then, when it suits the NFF, it says it is governed by FIFA rules  but when it needs money to run its affairs, especially competitions where Board members and their cronies will share estcode, it runs to government under the name NFA to collect money, which it again claims is just a grant.

So to the outside world and FIFA especially, Maigari is President of the NFF but when the Board needs money, Maigari goes to the government as NFA chairman as it wise to do so since the abrogation of the decree which set up the NFA is yet to be repealed, several years after the process was triggered in the National Assembly. Why the process is dragging at a snail speed is only understood by the politicians who often than not enjoy free trips to competitions around the world fully paid by the NFF.

An aggrieved coach, Sylvanus Okpala recently claimed that Alhaji Maigari even dared him to go to President Jonathan to report that he was being owed and nothing will come out of it even if the president orders him to pay. Maigari has denied it though, may be after considering the consequence of the boast.

And just last week, listening to a television station, another Board member, Chief Emeka Inyama boasted that the present Board has been able to qualify the country for the 2014 World Cup “without a Presidential Task Force, PTF”. An allusion to the Task Force set up by the late president, Umar Musa Yar’Adua to assist the NFF drive the 2010 qualification.

May be still a way of spiting the presidency, the NFF House in Abuja built with money left over after the 2010 World Cup and which the NFF reportedly asked the PTF to return to the federation but was ignored, has remained abandoned. The other reason given for why the NFF has failed to move into the new secretariat since it was commissioned last October is that the PTF or government has failed to furnish it to taste for them.

It didn’t matter to the NFF that the house was built by the Federal Government through the PTF which it set up. It also didn’t matter to them that the House was commissioned by the President who sent the Vice President, Arch. Namadi Samba to represent him at the occasion. No wonder on that day it was commissioned, instead of smiling for acquiring a house of their own, the NFF Board members who attended the ceremony all wore long faces and vamoosed from the venue with the speed of light after the vice president left. What other name do you call that if not ingratitude to the highest order to a benevolent president.

However after all the bragging and seeing that the World Cup is at the corner, Alhaji Maigari was heard singing on a radio station last week, that the NFF and the Super Eagles need the presidential support (which translates to money of course) to be able to perform well in Brazil. Well said. What is the guarantee  that after the presidential support lands on their laps, they won’t turn ungrateful again, singing the same swan song, “we are under FIFA not Nigerian government.” Smart guys. But the government, I think, is wiser now.