What appears another round of confusion may have cropped up within the Nigerian football circle, as an Appeal Court sitting in Abuja, yesterday, sacked the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Board.
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, yesterday, January 19, 2024, 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), and made available to The Guardian, yesterday, 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 Chief 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 yesterday.
Guardian