SCORENigeria can specially reveal that despite pleas by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, CAF President Ahmad Ahmad has fired NFF president Amaju Pinnick as CAF 1st Vice President.
The positions of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Vice Presidents are appointed by President Ahmad Ahmad and not elective.
Pinnick’s post has now been taken up by Constance Omari of DR Congo, while Fouzi Lekjaa from Morocco is now the 2nd Vice President.
South Africa Football Federation (SAFA) President Danny Jordaan has been appointed the CAF 3rd Vice President.
He is widely considered to have a bigger profile than the Nigeria FA boss after he organised the hugely successful 2010 World Cup for the very first time in Africa.
It was learnt that Infantino asked Ahmad Ahmad “to reconsider” his decision to remove Pinnick, but the CAF boss it was also learnt was not prepared to be undermined by lieutenants he previously trusted.
“Pinnick was a changed man days leading up to his sack,” a top official told SCORENigeria
“The man that oozes arrogance was suddenly as humble as a chicken.
“In the past week he begged everybody and anything to ensure he was not ‘disgraced’, but the President was unmoved.”
He made several overtures for his boss to soft pedal on firing him.
Only this past week CAF disowned claims by the Pinnick-led NFF that a whopping $565,473 was spent for them to attend a CAF Congress in Egypt in 2015.
Pinnick’s dismissal now opens the way for him to face corruption charges back home in Nigeria after he has allegedly evaded doing so on various occasions.
The Nigerian government has brought a 17-count charge against Pinnick and four other top NFF officials, ranging for embezzlement to failure to declare their assets.
He was reported to have told government officials he was best positioned to be the first Nigerian to head the continental football governing body.
It was a gimmick he had hoped will deflect the weighty and criminal charges against him.
“It’s the beginning of the end,” a top government official told SCORENigeria today.
