NFF ELECTION: Akinwunmi, Dikko, Gusau unfit to contest- Uchegbulam
Former NFF 1st Vice President Amanzi Uchegbulam has said no member of the current NFF Executive Committee should be allowed to return to office because they along with outgoing President Amaju Pinnick have failed the nation.
Uchegbulam, who is also the Imo FA Chairman, spoke extensively to The Nation newspapers on the current state of football in Nigeria.
He said: “Most of the people that just failed are the ones angling to lead us again. Check the list …from the first vice (Seyi Akinwunmi) ; to the second vice (Shehu Dikko) ; to the chairman of chairmen (Ibrahim Gusau) …these are the same people that failed with Amaju Pinnick .
“Of course, Amaju would like any one of them to be there in order to protect his own place in CAF and FIFA.
“But as a matter of fact, I don’t think anybody that served under Amaju Pinnick should be given the opportunity to rule Nigerian football again.
“All of them failed together with Pinnick. Pinnick did not fail alone as such none of them who served with him have no moral right to come back to rule Nigerian football.
He added: “We removed Galadima and sacked the entire board in 2006 because Nigeria did not qualify for the World Cup, so there is a standard.
“So, why should those who didn’t qualify us for Qatar 2020 be jostling to be NFF president and members of the executive committee?
“If you can’t make the Mundial after four years, it means you have failed; so, I don’t understand why all of them want to be part of the new board.
“They all failed as a board to qualify Nigeria for Qatar 2022 World Cup and all of them are rushing back to be part of the new board. They don’t have respect for Nigerians and it’s shameful.”
Failure to qualify to the 2022 World Cup has cost Nigeria at least $12 Million, which would have turned around football in the country if properly spent.
“We lost a staggering $12m for not qualifying for the World Cup which if judiciously used would have turned around our football if we’d qualified for Qatar 2022. But they don’t care about the country other than their own selfish interests.
“The day we lost to Ghana and there was a riot at the stadium in Abuja and even somebody died, that same night, the NFF Presidents with his vice presidents were off to Qatar to attend the World Cup draws of which their own team did not qualify.
“Yet Nigerians were clapping for them, what kind of country is this? Sometimes, I feel I don’t belong here because I would have been so ashamed to go anywhere.
“The draw was meant for coaches and teams that qualified .Attending such an event which your own team failed to qualify for was nothing but a big shame, a slap on our collective sensibilities.”
