By Daily Sports on October 10, 2016

I don’t know about you, but I have long known that successive boards of the Nigeria Football Federation have paid lip service to the plight of Women football in the country.

However, I must posit that this current board has not hidden its desire to finally nail the coffin and also organise its funeral.

Without any prejudice, it has made itself the worst hater of the game that involves our women folks. I was amazed last Wednesday when the First Vice President of the federation, Seyi Akinwunmi led others to unveil Super Falcons player Azizat Oshoala as the face of 2016 Women FA Cup. No woman was involved in the ceremony that ought to have been peopled by women football stakeholders led by the chairperson of its league.

I was sent an invitation to attend the event. Honestly, I declined. The girl that was honoured, no doubt, has made her marks and would continue to do so for the game in that category. I have carried stories on her sterling exploits then in Rivers Angels and Super Falcons too.
In short, she is one of the Falcons players that brought thickness back to the fold and it is on record that it was when she was playing for Rivers Angels and Super Falcons that she won CAF top prize for Women football in Africa.

My protest not to attend the media unveiling was not against the player but the NFF leadership that has failed to give honour to who it is due, which is the women football stakeholders. It was a   men’s affair. The leadership sadly engaged itself in many wars, internal and external such that if not for FIFA, would have long consumed it.

It is not funny that the body has bluntly refused to conduct election to elect the Chairperson of the Nigeria Women Football League, (NWFL). Dear readers, the body has woefully failed to come out with cogent reasons why election into Women league board has been put on hold till this moment.

What we have seen is the drafting of the First Vice President, Seyi Akinwunmi to be acting as chairman of NWFL. He was the one that alerted the whole world that lesbianism among players and sundry have been the bane of the growth of the game in the country. He said that at an Oyo State Sports Writers Association (SWAN) event where he was a guest.

He further confessed that he tells anybody that cares to listen that he often tell NFF executive committee that if it doesn’t know how to go about solving the oddly, some of them can volunteer to provide information that would drastically uproot it within Women football circle.
Again as if to confirm its agenda to snuff life off the game, Akinwunmi led the pack that came to Lagos to unveil Oshoala as the face of 2016 Women Federation Cup, a pure function of NWFL Chairperson and her fellow women that make up the board of their league.
I never wanted to be counted in that illegality hence I was absent from the media parley and unveiling.  I have long sent my apology to where the invitation emanated from.
Clearly the step the NFF leadership has taken against Women football remains a bitter pill for the development of the sport. They must be bold enough to tell us why election was put on hold indefinitely against the dictates of the law governing the game in the law book and FIFA that abhors such. FIFA encourages democracy in its affiliate national federations than this attitude NFF leadership has solely and systematically adopted. It is alien to the 21^st century football administration.  And Nigeria must not be allowed to institutionalise such.

Come to think of it, the burden in men’s football has long overwhelmed this administration and they have brought the women angle to the already broke, limping and fragile body.
As Nigeria is constantly gasping for air which has put every citizen on the edge, NFF is fast killing the only sport that not only unites us but also uplifts us.

President Buhari has adamantly against every known wise counsel refused to reconstitute boards of agencies, INEC and miscellaneous which has contributed to worsen the already aggravated tensed polity. Mr. President may erroneously be hoping to get the economy out of recession he led the over 180 million Nigerians into without adhering strictly to the norms and best prescriptions. I digress.

Amaju has on the other hand, held Women football election hostage after its expiration, the board of Nigeria National League, (NNL) and that of the Nationwide League. Rather, he hand-picked his stooges to be overseeing these different boards, which  is out rightly unheard of in civilised climes that wholehearted embraced FIFA’s democratic and electoral reforms.  
This is the kind of cause everyone who loves this game must rise up decisively to tell Pinnick Amaju and his gang in unmistakable terms that they must embrace the universally accepted standard of conducting open free and fair poll in these boards without any further delay.  These are the legitimate demands from Nigerians. No more, no less.

This is exactly the critical area we should channel our energies towards to liberate Women football from the clutches of these men. We must stop the Amaju led undertakers before they put women football out of existence, as they have already brought it into disrepute. The era of running this game on the mere surface must be over now!

Let me confess that some of the bigwigs connived and are fighting tooth and nail to run the sole administrator stuff, the way and manner it is not supposed to be. My question is, will injustice against women ever stop in Nigeria? The international best practices on elective position(s) is whenever a tenure expires election is held to determine who steps into the new shoe.
In NFF, the leadership from nowhere engineered intrigues bending the rules governing election into the board that unambiguously stated that no geo-political zone would dominate the board of NFF for whatsoever reason.

But because Amaju and his cohorts want particular woman from his geo-political zone succeed Chief Mrs. Dilichukwu Onyedinma, therefore they deliberately created this avoidable deadlock that has lingered. Such mischievous strategy is never good for the game that has lost its once finest hour. Nigerians want the game rebuilt to its old good self instead the handcuff NFF has on it.  Amaju is already the leader of NFF; therefore, it will be impossible via certain provision in the laws that govern NFF for another South-south person to head women football. When he saw it won’t be easy for him to manipulate, the Women Football League was just left on stranded on the lonely high way.

You can see the dictatorial tendencies of Pinnick Amaju and his cohorts totally ignoring such clause there in the status shamefully still hell bent on scum venting the status quo.
It seems to have marked the beginning and may almost end of women football if fans, stakeholders and friends of the game in that cadre sit back, fold their hands and watch in utter disbelief and let Amaju and his boys kill off the game that held gritty and spectacle in the country in the 1990’s and early 2000. The men in the apex football governing body think differently.
Women football must not be left to die a natural death by flimsily withholding election that would usher in fresh air into the administration of the game. Women football activities the unveiling of last week and other things that affect it must be headed by NWFL chairperson. We must stop Amaju’s high handedness and despot signal towards our women football. It is obvious that the game has lost its grip, bite, bearing and reverberation.  We must get it right now or never. Meanwhile, we wait. Keep shooting hard!

•Victor Enyinnaya can be reached via 08055068145 (sms only) or by e-mail via sportzvictor@yahoo.com.au

Source Daily Sports

Posted October 10, 2016

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