Former vice-president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Victor Rumson Baribote has seriously questioned an attempt by the country’s secret service DSS to intervene in matters affecting the football federation.
This week, DSS invited stakeholders who have petitioned the country’s anti-graft agencies alleging monumental corruption at the NFF led by Amaju Pinnick.
“The DSS has no business intervening in football matters,” said Baribote, who was also chairman of the Nigeria Premier League.
“They ought to know their functions by the Act that established them.
“The NFF have a supervising ministry, the youth and sports ministry, and if there is any matter that needs to be resolved, it is this ministry that should do so.
“Nigerians are watching and no one will use state machinery to intimidate patriotic citizens who have sacrificed so much and put their lives at risk to expose what has been going on at the NFF.”
The DSS ordered the stakeholders to report to their Abuja office on “lingering NFF crisis”.
Baribote said this is most laughable.
“There is no crisis in the NFF. Is it not the same organisation that just moved into their new offices in Abuja this week with all the fanfare?
“What programme of the NFF has been disrupted or has not gone according to plan?
“What we have at the NFF is corruption and the appropriate authorities are investigating these allegations of corruption.
“So, when has it become an infraction against the state to expose corruption in a public office?”
SCORENigeria gathered that NFF president Amaju Pinnick was at the DSS office in Abuja Wednesday, but the stakeholders who have variously petitioned against him have asked through their lawyers for another appointment with the state security service.
