By Josef Omorotionmwan
In Nigeria today, the 90 minutes of legal violence, which they call the game of football has come to dominate all other revenue-yielding sports. That’s Nigeria for you. The moment we discovered football, every other sporting endeavour was relegated to the background.

Of course, that’s what we do all the time. As soon as oil was discovered in Nigeria, all other money-yielding endeavours were neglected. Agriculture, which was the mainstay of our economy, was virtually buried.

As happened with oil where we failed to harness the tremendous advantages abound, football also came and we ignored all the benefits it brought along. Most countries that love football as we pretend to do, develop the industries around football. But Nigeria must import everything – from the football boots to footballers’ jerseys. It is also understandable that the tickets for the games are printed abroad.

Admittedly, no organisation grows higher than the environment in which it exists. That explains how the Nigerian Football Federation, NFF, has become a perfect metaphor for Nigeria.

From the perspective of the coach: He is hired today; fired tomorrow; and hired again the next day on half contract. To the NFF, the members take office today and the next day, they are booted out! From the courts  handling the cases to the footballers in their goal scoring abilities and their selection process, they are simply reminiscent of the episode of the Chibok girls: the news comes that they have been kidnapped by Boko Haram, no, they were not kidnapped; they are hiding somewhere in Government House; no, they were indeed kidnapped! Agreement has been reached to release them “on Monday”; no, no agreement has been reached!

For how long are we going to live with these deceits and pathological lies? Ad infinitum?  Ad nauseam?

For how long are we going to live with the type of theatricals currently playing out at the Glass House? Up to July 2014, Alhaji Maigari glued himself to the Glass House as NFF President, even long after his tenure had expired.

By whatever means, Maigari was forced out, but not before Nigeria had a taste of FIFA’s ban. On August 26, 2014 Chris Giwa was said to have emerged NFF President in a highly disputed election process that took place in Abuja. The world football governing body, FIFA, did not recognise the election of Giwa.

On September 20, 2014, there was an extraordinary meeting of the NFF in Warri, which was followed by an elective congress on September 30, 2014 at which the Delta State FA Chairman, Amaju Pinnick, emerged President of NFF. The Pinnick-led Executive was quickly recognised by FIFA, which warned that should anything hinder this newly-elected NFF Executive Committee, they will move for an automatic ban for the country till the next FIFA congress in May 2015.

Meanwhile, some of Giwa’s loyalists maintained that Giwa was validly elected NFF President on August 26, 2014. They took the matter to court, in utter defiance of the FIFA statutes, which clearly outlaw football matters being handled in civil courts.

On Thursday, October 23, Justice Ambrose Allagoa of the Federal High Court, Jos, annulled the NFF elections held in Warri on September 30, 2014 as well as the congress preceding it. Hear the Hon. Justice Allagoa: “I have set aside all the proceedings and decisions of the Warri extra ordinary meeting of the 20th September and the elective congress of 30th September which were direct contravention of the orders of this court as granted on the 19th September… Nobody should foist on the court a complete case of hopelessness so that the principles of law and justice can be upheld. It’s not enough to say that the order of court was wrongly made, no matter how unorthodox, its subsisting orders, unless set aside, remain law and must be respected”.

The court, therefore, ruled that Giwa should return to the seat of power at the Glass House. This is thoroughly Nigerian. We now have multiple NFF Executive Committees in place: the Maigari executive might still be hanging in the wings; the FIFA-recognised Pinnick executive is on ground; and the court-resurrected Giwa executive is also there!

The Federal Government wallows in this type of confusion. This is what it has successfully fuelled and foisted on Edo and other states where its party is not in power. Perhaps oblivious of the fact that what goes around comes around, they are today enjoying their contrivance of the parallel PDP and APC legislatures. Some day soon, they will contrive separate PDP Government House and APC Government House in the same state.

In the ensuring confusion at the NFF, Stephen Keshi has been asked to go home – whatever language was used. That is also Nigerian! In other places, people resign but in Nigeria no one resigns. They stay put until they are sacked.

In football, the rule is clear – nobody wants a coach that has outlived his usefulness. Keshi should have known that his record of five defeats, five draws and one lousy victory in the last 11 matches cannot be a pass mark anywhere. Let him take that to Illah market and see how much fish will follow him home; instead of hanging around, repining over whether he was sacked or not!

And see who is leading the team that is replacing Keshi, even for one day, as a stop gap – Amodu who was sacked and stopped from leading the country to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Is this not the same man who has been hired four times and fired four times? Come on! This is a worse mistake.

Nigeria must rise above this rumble in the jungle. If the unserious men choose to be banned ten times over, that is their kettle of fish. But, for goodness sake, everything must be done to avert jeopardizing the chances of these amazons of the field – the Falcons! And when is the devolution of interest from football to other areas going to begin?