Nigeria’s sporting neighborhood has been thrown into confusion and outrage, following a stunning growth within the nation’s flag soccer ecosystem, thereby elevating a disturbing query.
Why is one particular person brazenly defying the Nationwide Sports activities Fee (NSC)? Why is he taking unsuitable steps, after clear directives got on unity, legality and correct governance?
Barely weeks after the NSC, led by its chairman, Mallam Shehu Dikko and the director-general, Hon. Bukola Olopade, issued a agency public assertion warning that no particular person or affiliation is authorised to parade itself because the official consultant of Nigeria in flag soccer, the president of Nigeria American Soccer Affiliation (NAFA), Babajide Akeredolu has taken an motion many describe as a direct problem to the authority of the federal authorities.
Regardless of being formally notified of the NSC’s stakeholders’ assembly —which was designed to finish years of division and unite all teams beneath a single forthcoming federation — the NAFA president absented himself, selecting as an alternative to function independently of the nationwide reconciliation course of.
Nonetheless, the actual shock got here days later. In a transfer seen as dismissive, provocative and intentionally confrontational, he issued a proper letter to people he described as “stakeholders,” presenting himself as President of a nationwide physique and calling for collaboration beneath NAFA — the identical organisation the NSC has repeatedly clearly said can’t be recognised beneath its present title and construction.
That is occurring at a time when the NSC has already:
*Introduced {that a} unified Flag Soccer Federation will probably be inaugurated quickly
*Supplied all teams outlined roles on the brand new board
*Established that no personal physique will probably be allowed to function as a nationwide authority
*Warned all events in opposition to claiming nationwide management earlier than the federation’s formal launch
Surprisingly, the NAFA president has gone forward to flow into an extended proposal positioning NAFA because the central determine of authority, whereas additionally asking stakeholders to ‘state their organisation’s historical past, position within the ecosystem, and willingness to collaborate’ beneath his management.
Stakeholders at the moment are asking: Is This Open Insurrection? On the similar tine, many observers are calling his motion an unprecedented and provocative transfer.
A stakeholder requested, “How can the NSC announce that nobody has the proper to name themselves nationwide leaders till the Federation is shaped, and days later, somebody is sending out letters addressing himself as president?”
Whereas reacting to the event, a senior sports activities administrator described it bluntly: “This isn’t collaboration. That is an try to ascertain management earlier than the official federation is inaugurated. It undermines the NSC and destabilises the progress already made.”
Many stakeholders additionally level to what has been severally described as ‘a troubling sample of non-compliance.’ Among the many a number of worrisome patterns that at the moment are unfolding are:
*His refusal to attend the NSC-sanctioned reconciliation assembly
*Refusal to adjust to the NSC directive to cease parading as a nationwide authority
*Refusal to alter the title, after the sports activities ministry clearly said that “Nigeria American Soccer” can’t be accredited because the tag of a governing physique within the nation beneath Nigerian sports activities regulation.
*The sudden push to reposition NAFA because the nation’s central governing pressure regardless of authorities warnings
Consequently, stakeholders recommend that these actiibs quantity to a direct confrontation with the legally established sports activities authority of Nigeria.
