The world football governing body, FIFA has ordered that Aminu Maigari be reinstated as the president of the Nigeria Football Federation with immediate effect. The NFF executive committee had last month announced that they had impeached Maigari.
But in a letter dated August 14 to the NFF General Secretary Musa Amadu and signed by FIFA deputy secretary general, Markus Kattner, FIFA demanded that, “The executive committee of the NFF shall also be reunified as it was before the 2014 World Cup.”
FIFA said that the standard statutes for removing an executive committee member from office were not duly followed in his case and the two other members — Chris Green and Ahmed Yusuf ‘Fresh’ — who were also said to have been suspended last week.
And with the FIFA ruling Green and Ahmed have also been re-instated to the executive committee.
The FIFA letter obtained read in part, “We refer to your correspondence dated August 7, 2014 as well as information we received from different Nigerian stakeholders, including president Maigari.
“We take note of your explanations with regard to the meeting of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) held on 24 July, 2014 and it would appear that the said meeting did not comply with some statutory provisions. In addition, in a correspondence addressed to FIFA, Mr Maigari denied the course of the events and complained that he had not been given the possibility to answer the allegations against him.”
FIFA then directed that Maigari should preside over the August 26 elective congress originally billed for Warri, Delta State.
The FIFA letter also questioned the decisions of the executive committee regarding the said suspension of Green and Ahmed which followed similar pattern to Maigari’s.
The document read, “The recent decisions of the executive committee are highly questionable with regard to the compliance of the statutes and should anyway be confirmed by the congress.”
FIFA also advised the Nigerian federation that all major decisions concerning Nigeria football be put on ice until after the August 26 polls. It was made clear that Magari should preside over that congress and election as the president of the federation.
On Monday the executive members had met with the sports minister Tammy Danagogo and Secretary to the Government Chief Anyim Pius Anyim separately with both officials reportedly asking them to reinstate Maigari.
