Today, I wish to make a bold and clarion call to the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) clubs to take over their league without any further delays.
The clubs should get a well-articulated template for a viable professional league, rejig and reposition their competition, it’s their inherent right to do so.
The NFF have no powers to stop them provided they pay their 5% annual royalty, which stands as your affiliation fees.
I dare the clubs to take control and command of their league.
The League Management Company (LMC) as presently constituted has serious credibility problems and it’s also a bogus set up by the promoters to defraud the league.
They were con men who took undue advantage of the NFF to leech on an emerging league with the greatest potential in Africa and killed it.
Remember that the former president of the NFF Aminu Maigari on Thursday, December 27, 2012, inaugurated the premier league management committee at the boardroom of the NFF to run the 2012/2013 league season (only) as a stop-gap measure after the induced crisis in the NPL.
For ease of reference we shall quote three chapters only from Aminu Maigari’s speech.
“The exercise we are conducting today is the fulfilment of a mandate handed down to the NFF executive committee by the congress of Nigeria football at the 68th Annual General Assembly in Port Harcourt on Thursday, December 13, 2012.
The congress had directed the executive committee to compose a League Management Committee to run the affairs of the Nigerian Premier League for the 2012/2013 season, pending the conduct of fresh elections.
“It is my belief, the belief of the executive committee and that of the congress, that the 2012/2013 premier league management committee will do an excellent job of quickly and properly sorting out the lingering issues and run the 2012/2013 league season brilliantly, in the process setting a template for the board that will emerge after the elections, to the glory of Nigeria football.
“I wish you the very best in this endeavour and charge you to be transparent and accountable, be above board and commit resolutely to the task at hand.
“Finally, it is my singular honour and privilege to inaugurate this 2012/2013 premier league management committee with the highest sense of responsibility and fulfillment of a mandate.
Aminu Maigari was clear and unambiguous in his speech. Maigari watching events as it unfolds now six years after leaving office must be a very sad man because it was never his wish to hand over the NPFL to impostors, no League Management Company was formed or intended, it was a premier league management committee.
How the promoters of the LMC manipulated and dubiously incorporate the LMC and became license holders for 99 years, the longest license holders in the world of football, remains a mirage.
And it is this same flawed process that Shehu Dikko emerged NFF 2nd vice-president and they said they want peace in Nigeria football? How?
The NPFL clubs must proceed to rescue the league while the NANF is assuring stakeholders that all the billions of Naira from sponsorship allegedly diverted by promoters of the LMC will be recovered as that process is in full swing.
BY HARRISON JALLA
