I have never been a fan of NFF’s President Amaju Pinnick since he assumed the leadership of Nigerian football. I perceived him to be arrogant, self-aggrandizing, meddlesome and power-hungry.
However, my views about him changed when I met him at an event and got introduced to him by his PA Chikelue Iloenyosi. I expected him to be aloof and disdainful. No. He wasn’t. He was all smiles and chatted with me like old friends. So much for judging a book by its cover.
Even when I recalled his tirades against Dr Rafiu Ladipo, the President-General of Nigeria Football Supporters Club, he calmly told me that he is entitled to his own opinions. Correct. Reasons why many Nigerians, particularly, sports journalists and football-loving Nigerians have equally and erroneously established dirty and induced opinions about him.
It is a fact that since he became the NFF President, his roads have been rough and exasperating. The leadership of the NFF have continued to face and battle against a litany of trumped-up financial and maladministration allegations.
In all my years as a former footballer turned journalist, I have never seen an executive board of NFF suffered so much hatred by the so-called stakeholders in the fortunes of Nigerian football. You might ask why this hatred for Amaju Pinnick?
I would not go into the several allegations levelled against him. However, investigations revealed that the recent attacks on Pinnick over the Anambra State FA election was predetermined. A section of the media led by runaway sports journalist, Wale Ajayi is bent on truncating the administration of Pinnick for selfish reasons.
On the Anambra State FA election, what were the guidelines for the election? Who contested against Ifeanyi Ubah in the election? How did you authenticate the election that was supposedly conducted online? Why the desperation by Ifeanyi Ubah and his goons?
Wale Ajayi and his co-travellers have labelled the cancellation of the Anambra FA election as payback time by Amaju Pinnick to ‘deal with’ Ifeanyi Ubah over his seeming happiness that Pinnick was removed from CAF’s Executive Committee. I want Ajayi to know that Pinnick is a class above his paymaster in African and world football circles.
There is nothing wrong if Ifeanyi Ubah aspires to become Anambra State Governor, NFF, CAF and FIFA Presidents in one swoop. However, his inordinate ambitions should not make him bring down a fellow Nigerian through dirty, selfish and wicked machinations.
That Wale Ajayi is the leader of this band of traducers is no longer a surprise to those who knew his greedy and unprofessional antecedents. Accusing Pinnick of launching a personal vendetta against his assumed friend is flippant, whimsical and childish.
Many of us can quickly recall how he dined and wined with past and present football administrators. Only to turn around to backstab and betray them when the tables are turned against him. How can he forget or forgive those that fact relieved him of his ‘inheritance’ as the Nigeria U20 media officer?
Like the proverbial ants, he cannot do without rotten and unhealthy leftovers. He has the unenviable reputation for blackmailing and arm-twisting football administrators with his unfounded and unverified ‘Exclusives’. Today, he is in pains because Pinnick and other administrators have equally wisened up to his antics and the dirty money has stopped. Yes, every day for the blackmailer, one day for the long hands of the law.
It is equally painful that not a few respected sports journalists and members of the football community have been deceived by his mischievous, bland, selfish and unsuccessful attempts to become Nigeria football mouthpiece.
Recent happenstances have continued to show us the betrayers and saboteurs of Nigeria football. Amaju Pinnick is not the problems of Nigerian football. Beyond rhetorics, what are the genuine contributions of the noisemakers to the growth of Nigerian football? And just as we have in virtually all facets of our national life, the ‘Pull Him Down’ (PhD), the syndrome has eaten deeper into Nigerian football and other sports.
One day, and very soon, Ifeanyi Ubah, like others before him, would regret his relationship with Wale Ajayi, who smells only money and would not blink an eye to do anything for it. Friendship and relationships mean nothing to him.
I have decided to get off the fence and unearth my battle-hardened and sharp sword in defence of Nigerian football and other sports.
