As Nigerians prepare for the elections into the board of the Nigeria Football Federation one question hangs over the elections like the proverbial sword of Damacles: ‘Who are the delegates to the elections? I mean, who are the voters?

The fate of the entire elections rests squarely and precariously in the answer to that question. It is worth a million Dollars I tell you. This is why!

Makurdi Congress!

Sometime in 2008 the General Assembly (Congress) of the  Nigeria Football Federation met in the city of Makurdi in Benue State. The Congress decided to amend the Statutes of the NFA. They changed the name NFA to NFF. They turned the nomenclature of the leadership from Chairman to President. They reduced the membership of the voting delegates at elections from 102 that elected the board in 2006 to 44 delegates made up of 37 State FA Chairmen and 7 others! The  7 others members are the Chairmen of the surviving affiliate members of the NFF  including the Referees Association,  Coaches Association, Premier League,  Amateur League,  Professional League, Women’s League and one other.  Several other members have been expunged from the membership of the NFF including Nigeria School Sports Federation, NAPHER, Armed Forces, and so on!  Those decisions, once approved by congress, became valid as they are within the purview of Congress to do.  The Congress then took one additional over-reaching decision, one that is likely to mar what would otherwise be a very keen, exciting and open election. The Congress approved the insertion of a clause in the Statutes that directed one of its affiliate members (the body of State Football Associations) to conduct elections into their boards in November/December of 2010 in the year of the World Cup! It was such an innocent insertion that no one raised any objection or issue about it. I believe that no objection was raised because members did not fully appreciate the implication of the clause, and that those that understood it knew exactly what they were doing and ‘hid’ it from the generality of members of the congress. Those that scripted it designed it to fool everyone including FIFA (it escaped their scrutiny when the draft was sent to them) and to ensure that the incumbent Executive Committee returns to the board unchallenged even by government. How is going to be possible? You must read on.

No NFA regime in over 65 years of the body’s existence had previously ever dictated or ever being involved in setting the dates for the election of any of its several members including State Football Associations. It can observe and even monitor members’ elections to ensure compliance to the rules, but it must never interfere. This is because the affiliate members of the NFA are all independent, private organisations with their own individual constitutions directing their conduct and activities.  FIFA’s Statutes explicitly states that every one of its members has to be independent and that no external body, including and, in particular, the NFF can interfere in its affairs! It is very clear. All members are subordinate to the NFF but they are totally independent in their activities! So independent are they that not even FIFA can dictate or direct them to conduct their elections on any particular dates! What FIFA and CAF and the NFF all agree to is that elongation of the tenure of a board is taboo. It is not acceptable practise except in a case of force majeur, and even then,  such an extension can only be done by the congress of that body and approved by the body to which it is affiliated. A State Football Association congress can extend the tenure of its board under very special circumstances but acceptable to their controlling national football association. The NFF cannot extend the tenure of the board of any of its member affiliates! Neither can the General Assembly of the NFF do so!

The other strange thing is that the NFF did not even mention or direct any other of its member affiliates, like the Coaches association and the Premier league for example, to conduct their own elections at any particular period. Only ONE member, the body of State FAs was of interest to the NFF. But why the State FAs only? Voting strength!

It is clear that as the Congress successfully reduced the number of voting delegates from 102 to 44,  37 of them coming from only one source, is a formidable force that will determine the fate of the elections.

So, against the rules of FIFA, CAF and even the NFF itself, the NFF congress committed an illegal act, one they did not have the powers to do, one which FIFA forbids. They directed that one of their members (State FAs ) should conduct elections into State Association boards after the elections into the Executive Committee have been completed.  This means that the State FA Chairmen (37 of them in a new 44 member electorate) will continue to be in office irrespective of how long they have been there (some several months and even years beyond their 4-years tenure), until November/December 2010!  Meanwhile, remember that these were the same delegates that emerged from their State FA elections in 2004 and 2005 and represented their States at the 2006 Elections that brought in Sani Lulu.  The NFF illegally extended the tenure of the State FA boards, and the State FA chairmen did not raise any issue simply because they were programmed to be the ultimate beneficiaries of the extension. Most members in the States did not even know enough of the fine lines in the Statutes governing football for them to complain. Now that they do, some of them have begun to see more clearly and have even started to complain and raise some hell.

The effect of this extension is that all the present State Football Association Chairmen, except one or two, have been in office for 5 years and over! One has even been in office for 12 years without any election. The same persons elected the outgoing Executive Committee members 4 years ago. They now want to elect the next Executive Committee members without going through their own State constituency elections first! Impossible! It is never done! It has never happened anywhere in the world. It is illogical and illegal. Anything that such a delegation does will be challenged in the court of FIFA, in the Court of Arbitration or even in regular courts!

So, Makurdi was the venue of the illegality that calls for federation elections before State elections.  After the Congress, the Executive Committee did a draft of the Statutes reflecting the decisions of congress and sent it to FIFA for approval.  FIFA responded within a few months and advised that several changes be made to the document, sent back to it for further appraisal, before being re-presented to the NFF congress for ratification! FIFA made no comment on the external interference clause in the Statutes because it failed to see through the clever way it was disguised.  So, all members of the NFF Congress believe till now that those clauses they approved, no matter how wrong or illegal they may be, must remain as laws until congress meets again to remove them! How wrong! In the case of obvious errors of judgement and of stepping out of boundaries of responsibility, congress is not needed to correct an illegality! Even the NFF later realised it and corrected the error without going back to congress! This is how I know.

The NFF expunges illegal clause on State elections!

The Electoral Committee of the 2010 elections is (by implication) a creation of the present Executive Committee. The electoral committee has distributed copies of the latest version of the NFF 2010 Statutes to those that will be participating in the coming elections. They make very interesting reading and study. In the new Statutes, amongst so many other things, there is no longer any mention of the dates for State Elections. The entire section has been expunged by the NFF between the time the draft Statutes were returned from FIFA and the last General Assembly that approved the 2010 Statutes in Abuja last month.  What happened? What happened to the clause that directed States to hold their elections in November/December? Why was the clause and several others removed completely? Why did the NFF not convey the new position or decision to remove that provision from the Statutes to the members if they knew congress needed to withdraw it after having approved it in Makurdi in 2008? The answers are simple. I wrote about the situation and pointed out the anomalies. I also sent a letter to FIFA about it just to convince the NFF and the public that I was not writing outside of basic FIFA rules. The NFF legal department saw the implication and realised the long-term consequences of going against the most fundamental principle of the relationship between FIFA and its members – their independence and non-interference by third parties!

The Congress of the NFF was wrong to have interfered in the affairs of one of their affiliate members. They were wrong to have directed that elections be held by the affiliate members at a particular period, well beyond the tenure of the board. They were wrong to have inserted such a directive in the Statutes of the NFF. It is like CAF inserting in its statutes a period when African countries should hold their elections. CAF cannot dictate to Nigeria when to hold its elections. FIFA also cannot. The NFF definitely cannot tell any of its members also. What all of them can do is direct their members to conduct elections as soon as the end of their tenures is near and the appropriate time for the elections are provided.  No tenure elongation is ever encouraged or permitted.  So, in realising their mistake and changing their mind about the situation, why did the NFF not tell the State FAs that the clause that initially empowered them to participate in two Executive Committee elections in 4 years without renewing their own mandates has been removed? Why did the NFF not explain to the State FAs that the implication of the removal of that clause is that all State FA Chairmen must now go back to their States and conduct their own elections to determine the leadership that can now represent them lawfully as a delegate at the Federation  Executive Committee elections? Each state must conduct their own elections according to the status of their tenures.  Any State that has a board that has not exceeded its 4 year-tenure can send the present Chairman as its delegate to the elections. Any State that has a board that has exceeded 4-years since the last election cannot send its present Chairman as delegate without conducting fresh elections to renew his mandate or determine a new leadership. By deduction and implication, any delegate that participated in the 2006 elections cannot participate in the 2010 elections without been re-elected first in his State as Chairman.

The Electoral Committee and its dilemma!

The Electoral Committee does not have the mandate to conduct or even ask State FAs to conduct elections. True. That is not included in its mandate. Thats what the Chairman said when this issue was raised.  Technically he is very right! Their mandate is to conduct the Federation elections.

But who will be the delegates at the elections? Will he conduct elections with delegates that are not obviously eligible? How does he ascertain that he does not condone and promote what is certainly an illegality for which he is neither responsible nor empowered? The electoral committee’s responsibility is to ascertain that all participating delegates are eligible to vote! The surest way to confirm their eligibility is to request for evidence of qualification from delegates that present themselves as representing a State FA or any member constituency of the NFF. Such evidence will be in the form of information or documentation submitted by every state FA regarding the status of the delegate. Such a document must be evidence of a concluded State election signed by the Secretary of the FA showing the date of the election and results!  Such documentation does not have to go through much scrutiny. The reaction of other board members or persons from that State would be more than enough evidence of the veracity of the eligibility or not of the delegates. Otherwise, the electoral committee will be swarmed with petitions and, possibly, court cases either before or after the elections.

I have met the Chairman of the Electoral Committee. I told him how impressed I was with what he said about his determination to uphold the integrity of the elections. I believe him.  he looked and sounded like a man who would keep his word!

having said that I will join with others to watch and see how he and the electoral committee will play this ‘game’ on August 21, 2010. How will they produce delegates for the Federation  elections when the country is waiting for the State elections to take place first to determine who will represent them. The world is watching!

Other members of the NFF

There are 44 members of the NFF. They are the 37 State Football Associations and 7 others.  Little is heard about the 7 members even as elections draw near. Have they done their own elections to determine who represents them? Do they have a similar circumstance where elections have not been held after the tenure of the boards have expired? Are the associations even functioning?