What appears to be another round of confusion may have cropped up within the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) circle, as an Appeal Court sitting in Abuja on Friday sacked the Nigeria NFF President, Ibrahim Gusau and his entire Board members over the illegal conduct of the September 30, 2022 NFF elective Congress in Benin City, Edo State.
In Appeal NO CA/ABJ/CV/1006/2022, the court of Appeal panel, led by Justice Barika, together with Justices Okon Abang and Justice Banjoko, on Saturday, January 19, sacked the NFF board by setting aside and striking out all ‘dubious’ orders obtained by ‘deceit’ on the 29th of September 2022 to conduct the purported NFF election of September 30th in Benin City, Edo State.
A statement by Harrison Jalla, Chairman, Task Force, Professional Footballers Association of Nigeria (PFAN), stated that the court struck out all processes concerning the NFF appeal and further ordered that the processes be deleted from all systems of the court forthwith.
According to the statement, parties in the matter were represented by the following counsels-NFF Jibrin Okutepa SAN represented by Peace Omiri and Barrister Arnold from his chambers, while PFAN TASK FORCE- was represented by Dr. Celsus Ukpong, Chief Rumson Baribote and Mary Waribo.
In the light of the above, any sacked NFF board member parading itself after the ongoing AFCON in Ivory coast would be risking criminal contempt proceedings.
No official of the NFF was ready to speak on the issue as of Friday.
The Benin election under the Pinnick Amaju-led board was stopped by an Abuja High Court as the PFAN had earlier dragged the NFF to court in a lawsuit to modify the NFF Statutes before the elective Congress.
Over 40 candidates contested for various positions on the dissolved NFF board.
