After two ballots, Delta FA Chairman, Amaju Melvin Pinnick, yesterday emerged the 39th president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), defeating his closest rival, Dominic Iorfa polling 32 votes out of the 44 votes cast.
Both Iorfa and former NFF scribe, Taiwo Ogunjobi, got eight and four votes respectively in the second ballot by the delegates at the elective congress of the NFF which held at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Warri yesterday.
Earlier, Pinnick won the first voting, polling 25 out of the 44 votes cast but failed to meet the 2/3 required votes of the entire delegates (which is 29 votes as stipulated by article 16 (2) rule of the electoral guidelines). This was what necessitated the second ballot that created anxiety for his backers at the polling centre.
Ogunjobi and Iorfa polled nine and six votes respectively in that first ballot while Amanze Uchegbulam secured only four votes. Both Mike Umeh and Abba Abdullahi Yola failed to get any vote in the first round to warrant their elimination along with Uchegbulam when it was time for the second ballot.
Lagos State FA Chairman, Seyi Akinwunmi, also emerged as the new 1st vice-president of the NFF, polling 30 votes to secure majority needed for him to replace Umeh on the new board. Former board member, Emeka Inyama (4 votes), Adamu Shehu (8 votes) and Muazu Suleyman (2v otes) were the other contestants for the 1st vice-president position.
Musa Gusau Ibrahim was elected unopposed for the position of Chairman of Chairmen while influential member of the immediate past board, Christopher Green, returned to the new board defeating Oswald Atuake 26-14 for the South-south slot.
Speaking after the elective congress witnessed by all the major stakeholders in Nigerian football like the representatives of the Nigerian Referees Association (NRA), Club Owners, Players Union, FIFA, the National Sports Commission, and the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Pinnick promised to work with everyone that will help the game to grow in the country.
“My election is ordained by God because at outset, I was going to be a member of the electoral panel until something happened and that process was scuttled. I see my election as NFF president as God wanting to use me for the purpose of reforming Nigerian football. I want all Nigerians to be patient with the new board for us to deliver the necessary change for the overall good,” observed Pinnick in his acceptance speech.
He said that if scientific methods he adopted in Delta which have made the state the number one in the country’s sports are replicated at the national level, the sky would be the limit for Nigeria’s football.
“We want to use scientific methods to build on Alhaji Aminu Maigari’s achievements at NFF. Nigeria should be within the top 20 bracket of FIFA Rankings and not where we are today,” he noted.
On the issue of a new head coach for the Super Eagles, the new NFF president promised to have a meeting with his board members and fashion out what will make Nigerians happy.
“We have two very important matches ahead against Sudan and Congo in the AFCON 2015 qualifiers and don’t want to be distracted. The board will meet and come out with what football loving Nigerians will be happy about,” concludes Pinnick who also doubles as chairman of Delta State Sports Commission.
However in a swift move, Chris Giwa, whose election as factional president of the NFF WAS voided by FIFA before yesterday’s congress in Warri, issued a statement last night clinging to the mandate given to him by a minority members of the Nigerian football stakeholders.
Giwa claimed that the elections in Warri were against a subsisting court injunction handed out by a Jos high court stopping the election.
“I, Ambassador Christopher Giwa, elected into office on the 26th of August 2014 as president of the Nigeria Football Federation at the congress in Chida Hotel in Abuja remains the head of the governing body of the nation’s football.
“It came to our notice that some people gathered in Warri to conduct an illegal election…. We are also aware that a court of competent jurisdiction presided over by Justice A.L. Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Jos gave a ruling which outlawed the processes embarked upon in Warri.
“We shall pursue the process of justice, fair play and associated freedom as guaranteed by the 1999 constitution on us as Nigerians,” stressed Giwa.
He promised to hold a board meeting in Abuja on October 2, where far reaching decision would be taken. 