Aminu Maigari was on Thursday elected as the new President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in an election conducted at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
Maigari who has been at the helm of affairs at the football house, but in an interim capacity, since the impeachment of the former president Sani Lulu becomes the 38thth president of the football federation founded in 1945.
The Nigeria Football Federation defied two court injunctions against holding its elections as the body elected Aminu Maigari as the new President of the country’s football federation.
The elections were scheduled to hold last Saturday but the FA Congress decided to shift the exercise to Thursday because of a court injunction issued on Friday.
The National Association of Nigerian Footballers obtained another injunction on Tuesday from a Lagos High Court, stopping the elections but the football body refused to obey the orders.
A mild drama ensued at the venue of the elections as the President of the NANF, Harrison Jalla, was arrested by security operatives while attempting to serve the NFF the new court order.
A former Secretary-General of the Nigeria Football Association, Tijjani Yusuf, decided on Thursday not to be part of the elections. He told correspondents that he withdrew from the race based on personal reasons.
All these, however, did not stop Maigari from emerging the new NFF President. He had been the acting president since the former executives of the body were impeached by the board.
Maigari carried the day with 31 votes, beating Sani Toro who had five votes and Oyuki Obaseki who got four votes. Shehu Dikko had two votes while Lumumba Adeh had no vote in the exercise.
The position of the First Vice-President will now be occupied by Mike Umeh, who had 26 votes. Jarrett Tenebe came second with 13 votes while Fanny Amun and Obinna Ogba came third and fourth with three and two votes respectively.
After staging a protest march on Tuesday against the conduct of the elections, the ex-internationals decided to boycott the exercise, saying those who participated in the elections had violated the law and should be punished.
”I heard the elections were going on but I have decided not to be part of it because of the court orders restraining anyone from going ahead with the exercise,” one of the NFF presidential aspirants, Segun Odegbami, told correspondents on the telephone on Thursday.
“If they go ahead to defy the court, then whatever they do is illegal. The court will decide what to do with them.”
From Punch
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