Former Board member of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) under the Aminu Maigari administration and current Chairman of Chairmen of the Ambassador Chris Giwa board, Chief Effiong Johnson has asserted that FIFA has no business in the current developments in Nigerian football saying that “we know the authors and the sources of the ‘jabulani’ letters flying purportedly from FIFA.
We have advised them not to go that route. We will certainly take FIFA to task again. We have already written the International Police (Interpol) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate the last letter they claimed from FIFA.
This may be another wild and wide embarrassment for FIFA. With the preliminary report from the investigation so far taken, we have it on good authority that some Nigerian FA officials and about three FIFA officials may be invited to help them arrive at the manufacturers of the letters. Just watch out soon.
On what buoyed his level of confidence to talk without blink, the tall and massively built former Akwa Ibom FA chairman said,
“we built our processes slowly and surely. We followed every move with patience and the experience from the previous fights. I was a key player in countering the 2010 fight from the National Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF). They were small in number but well organised. I know what they built on and it helped us to define our structures.”
Asked why his group has not resumed in the Glass House since the 8th April 2016 when they got the court order, Johnson said,
“the court order was like the result of a scan that showed you are pregnant and have twins. We had to prepare so many grounds to go in and make a difference in the administration of the game. Two, we have resumed in the Glass House immediately we got the judgement but there are institutions of the state we had to inform which we have done but I can assure Nigerians that change has come in our game. When the woman drops the baby, even the deaf and the blind will hear the row. Wait for the baby, soon, it will come.”
Asked if FIFA’s letter to ban Nigeria as it has started circulating will not come. He laughed. Let them bring it first. It will only help in confirming the fraud which preliminary investigations has shown is the norm there. He asked, did you read the decision of CAS in the matter we dragged FIFA before that court?
He brought out a bulky 59-page judgement from where he copiously read.
