The president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Amaju Pinnick and the other top officials charged to court for alleged corruption must do the honourable thing and appear before the court of justice without any further drama or delay.
Claims by them of bias and improper procedures to their being charged are disgraceful, condemnable, reprehensible and unacceptable.
SCORENIGERIA insists the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) is not a law court and whatever reservations these officials may have will be duly addressed in the court of the land.
They are not above the law of Nigeria and as such they must now come before justice to defend their family names against damning revelations that have made nonsense of the committed war against corruption that has been waged by the President Muhammadu Buhari Government.
An administrative panel set up by the sports ministry described the allegations against the NFF chieftains as “criminal and weighty”.
We have clearly seen a government organisation brazenly dare the fight to rid the country of corruption, which has for many, many years held down its people.
From the incredible claim of spending millions on a match against Bolivia that was never played to fraudulently bypassing the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA), the officials have shamelessly failed to be accountable.
For many years the national sport has failed to live up to the promise it had once shown because some persons have seen it as their personal cash cow.
They have so milked this cow dry that today the main actors, the footballers, continue to be short changed, merit has been sacrificed for favouritism and the country’s top prizes are only for the highest bidders, not for the best and deserving clubs.
SCORENIGERIA says those who have perpetrated this MONUMENTAL STEALING at the NFF must be brought to book NOW if the country’s anti-graft agencies are truly alive to their responsibilities and are not to be seen as mere police for political opponents.
Both EFCC and the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the recovery of public property (SPIP) have done well to charge those found culpable from their thorough investigations into the NFF House of Corruption.
The courts must now ensure that the ‘judicial time wasting’ now embarked upon by the NFF defence counsel is no longer condoned because justice DELAYED is justice DENIED.
