‘Take away the gift from every ‘disappointment’ for underneath it is a hidden treasure’.

Thank God for these eternal words of wisdom. For those that believe, everything works for good!

I am sitting at home wondering. I guess every reader of this column is expecting some kind of reaction from me on the NFF elections that I hear are going on in Abuja as I write this. By the time you are reading this it must have been over and the ‘victors’ will be clinking their Champagne glasses, whilst the losers will be gnashing their teeth having been conned into embracing what they know is wrong but chose to look the other way if it would pay them. Having now lost they would have to live with the consequent moral and spiritual burdens.

I have had to pinch myself over and over again that the things that are happening are real and not the product of hallucination. I simply can not believe this could happen in  21st Century Nigeria. I cannot understand it. Why did the Lord make us (particularly me) go through all the trouble of the last few months that culminated in the ‘election’ of Thursday if it was going to add up to nothing in the end? Thats not how He works, so that can’t be it! It does not make sense! There must be something to take away from all of this – a ‘gift’? a lesson? something! Or perhaps the drama has not ended, and there is still a lot more to unfold. So, as I search my mind for answers I am also waiting and watching!

One thing is for sure: wrong shall not triumph over right, nor shall evil ever triumph over good. No matter how long it takes it is certain that a planted orange seed will not  produce an apple fruit. What we reap is what we sow. So, personally, I choose to stand on the side of what I believe represents everything I stand for – the truth!

I spoke with a prominent member of the Executive Committee of the NFF a few days ago at the Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja when all the delegates for the elections were assembling. He confessed to me that the NFF Executive Committee made several mistakes starting from some decisions taken in Makurdi in 2008. He confessed to me that many of his colleagues have realised that my complaints are valid, but that they could not come out to admit so. He said so many other things. As I write this I have just been told that even as one of the drivers for holding the elections, my friend has lost his seat on the board. I wonder what he would be thinking at this time. He supported what he knew was wrong and still lost. Is this not double jeopardy, to lose a physical election and to carry a moral garbage.  My advise to him is to go and beg for forgiveness from He who ‘rewards’ all according to their deeds.

What have we turned to as a people? Where are all those values my father, my teachers, my pastors taught us are the raw materials for the evolution of greatness in man -  honesty, hard work, justice, sincerity, compassion, love! As a young boy growing up in Jos I remember how my father and his friends used to eulogise their heroes of that period, ordinary humans that stood up against the tyranny of cultural and political subjugation.  It was in their discussions that I first got to know about the lives of Mahatma Ghandi, Obafemi Awolowo, Patrice Lumumba, Mallam Aminu Kano, people whose lives became a testimony to the benefits of truth, service, integrity and commitment to a cause that promotes the best of humanity. They also spoke, of course, about many other humans of other persuasions, men who were also ‘celebrated’ because they stole, cheated, robbed, and even killed to testify to their own kind of greatness. And then they made us choose who we wanted to be. My choice has always been clear and is underlined by everything I do. Thats why on the issue of the NFF elections I stand side by side with the National Sports Commission, the House of Representatives Committee on Sports, the Senate Committee on Sports, the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (Lagos Chapter), the thousands of footballers living in penury and neglect, Hundreds of Nigerians that have died in the service of Nigerian football forgotten, over 8 million Nigerian children that can be influenced by Nigerian football to get educated, and the millions of Nigerians whose voices rose in the wake of the controversy surrounding the illegality of the process of the NFF elections and called for change. All of these different bodies declared that the proposed process of the elections was wrong and that the right things be done. All of that against the voices of 40 or so members of the NFF General Assembly that are to benefit from the illegal process and Amos Adamu who stood stoutly and defiantly in their defence.  I sit and now ponder what the implications of what has just happened are for all Nigerians!

There is something not right with whatever happened in Makurdi in 2008. Thats why it has drawn so much opprobrium. We should simply have taken the time to look at it and fixed it first. We didn’t. Now we are faced with the reality of living with the consequences of the choices we made in conducting the elections. Nigeria is the ultimate loser! Nigeria has lost a Golden opportunity to change the direction in which Nigerian football was going. Nigeria has lost the opportunity to put FIFA in its proper place. Nigeria has lost the opportunity to instal its best hands and remove once and for all the vestiges of ethnicity, zoning, mediocrity and so on.  For a government whose political philosophy is hinged on the mantra of rule of law, it is inconceivable that a group would get away with blatantly disregarding and rubbishing the orders of a Federal High court and walk away with the ‘loot’ of their action! In a country where we allow the statutes of a foreign organisation to challenge our sovereignty and make our laws impotent there is something wrong. I am in amazement that here is a country where one man’s wish will prevail against the greater interest of the country, and the government is apparently helpless? It seems too many have been compromised and their authority rendered useless to stand on the side of truth and justice. In a country where its heroes are humiliated and the ‘cheats’ are celebrated I weep for the generation that inherits this kind of legacy!

So, the elections held. I thought the federal government many weeks ago advised that the elections be postponed.  I was at a summit of football stakeholders organised by the House of Representatives where most attendees advocated for postponement of the elections to allow for the right things to be done. The sports committee members of the national assembly rose from their meetings and advised that the elections be postponed so that the proper election process be instituted. For the first time the Nigerian people discussed the issues and said that they wanted no more of what had brought them to this sorry spot in their football administration and wanted the elections postponed so that the needed change can come. Some aggrieved persons took the route of going to court to seek justice. The courts in their wisdom ordered that the status be maintained  until the matter is disposed of one way or the other.  A few footballers took sides with all these agencies and walked the streets of Abuja to lend their voices to the call for change and wanted an intervention now so that the correct things be done! All of that on one side. On the other side are 37 Nigerians with the cloak of illegitimacy around their necks, plus a Nigerian with the axe of a foreign organisation in his hands, threatening fire and brimstone, and insisting that no power on earth can postpone the elections into an ordinary Nigerian organisation operating under the laws of the country!

August 21 has come and what happened? The Nigerian government capitulates. The order of a Nigerian High Court was disregarded. The wise counsel of the legislative representatives of the Nigerian people were ignored. And the elections went on! I still cannot believe it! What? Don’t we realise the implication of this?

We are building a house from it’s roof. Can national elections take place before State primaries? Never. But thats what we have just done. We have legitimised a glaring illegitimacy. We have empowered what is wrong! We have set a dangerous precedent. We have now confirmed that the Congress of the NFF is more powerful than the country that gave them life! That FIFA is more powerful than the government of Nigeria even on matters that are our internal affairs which the FIFA Statutes insist must not be influenced by any external body including FIFA. FIFA is flouting its own laws by dictating to Nigeria what must be done in the matter of its internal affairs. What has  FIFA got to do with when Nigeria holds its FA elections? We have enslaved Nigeria to a foreign body, thats what we have done. FIFA bared its teeth and a whole country capitulated! FIFA has made us to eat our own vomit! We must now live with what we say we do not want.  And we are doing all these things knowing fully well that it is all the handiwork of a few people pursuing a personal and not a national agenda.

Clearly, this is one man’s victory over a whole country. No such person should have such powers.  But thats the reality and we all know it to our shame. The elections are surely not a personal loss. It is a collective loss of the country. We have mortgaged our conscience and values and shall have to live with the consequences hereafter.

Having said of all of that, I believe that that there is a treasure beneath the disappointments. The battle is not over yet. I believe that this darkness shall soon turn to light. I believe that the God of hosts, the God of Justice, the God that set us all along this path, will never allow wrong to triumph over right!

The battle surely continues even though the battle ground may shift. I shall still pursue to the very end the role of FIFA in all of this. I am prepared to take the battle to the International Court of Arbitration to get FIFA to admit they are wrong in this instance and to apologise to all Nigerians! Those persons that have gone to court will still have their day in court!

Meanwhile, I congratulate the ‘winners’ of their elections and wish them a very wonderful tenure even as the drama of the 2010 elections will continue for sometime to come!