By Amaechi Agbo

The exclusion of the midfield sensation, Azeez Oseni from the Golden Eaglets team that recently participated in the U-17 Africa Cup of Nations held in Tanzania has been described as criminal, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report.

The proprietor and Chief Executive Officer of 36 Lion FC of Lagos, Alhaji Abdulgafaar Liameed Gafar disclosed this in an exclusive interview with our correspondent.

Alhaji Gafar who contested for the position of the Lagos State Football Association Chairmanship position but lost to the incumbent chairman, Seyi Akinwunmi said that he would honour any invitation extended to him by the three-man committee recently set up by the Nigeria Football Federation to investigate the circumstances leading the Oseni and five other players being wrongfully dropped due to wrong results of the Magnetic resonance imaging, MRI.

Alhaji Gafar noted that he trusted the two coaches with the Eaglets – Manu Garba and Nduka Ugbade and exonerated them from the scam but stressed that every other person that played roles in the team is a suspect.

Will you honour the Panel if they invite you to come and tell them your side of the scandal?

If the panel invites me, I will go but I have not been invited yet. I am sure that the people that set up the panel might have given them the brief on what and what to do. If my attention is needed, I am sure they will invite me and once they invite me, I am sure, I will be there. For now, I have not gotten any invite from the panel

How much confident do you have on the panel to do a thorough job?

I have 100% confidence in them. They have no reason not to do the right thing. For me, it is a very simple thing. You cannot fight a system wrongfully and win. It is impossible. But you can challenge a system when something is wrong from the system. If something is wrong from the system, it might have been somebody that did something either intentionally or unintentionally. Here you allege, and tell them what happened which I did. So having told them what happened, there is no way no matter how challenging the system is, somebody will not stand up and say ‘look, let’s listen to this man’s cry or let’s listen to this woman’s wail.’ I don’t know who did it but according to what I read, it was Mallam Shehu Dikko that constituted the panel. I am sure that they will do their investigation and part of their investigation would be to probably call me or to call the boy to come to Abuja and they do another MRI on him. My cry also made the other five guys to come out so they need to reconduct the MRI. There were other five players in the same fate but maybe they were thinking of what to do with the case before I made my complaints. As I came forward, the other five came in too

Do you know about the other five players that were wrongfully/intentionally dropped?

I really do not know them. I heard that there were six that they want to do another MRI for. I only complained of my own player and maybe when the other five heard about my submission, they too came out.

I never said that I will come open with the names of the people responsible for the scam. If I come open with their names, it means I have officially accused them and if you accuse somebody officially, what if the person is innocent? When something happens to you, you have to calm down before you take action.

There are only two persons I trust in the team and they are the two coaches – Manu Garba and Nduka Ugbade. Why I said that is because I heard from a credible source that they did not verify the results of the MRI submitted to them.

But does that mean I don’t trust the coordinator of the team? No. does that mean I do not trust the doctor; no. It also does not mean I do not trust the secretary and the NFF technical person attached to the team. But I can say I suspect all them. Manu and Nduka are not my suspects. As a matter of fact, I met them and I asked them ‘did you verify all your player’s MRI? They said ‘no’ that they did not verify it. That they were not able to verify. They did not do that out of nonchalant attitude, it could be the system. Then I thought about the other people responsible for the boys who are the coordinator, the secretary, the doctor, the NFF attaché who is the overall boss in the team. So to me, everybody is a suspect.

I heard that there was one gentleman that came from NFF who was neither the coordinator, the doctor nor the secretary. He came from NFF and pronounced the result of the MRI and the coaches accepted. That means they trust NFF and it also means somebody made a mistake somewhere. It could be intentional; it could be unintentional. Whatever it is, I don’t think any child career and life should be toiled with just like that.

There is insinuation that your player was dropped because you challenged the 1^st Vice President of NFF for the Lagos State FA chairmanship position.

(laughs). I would not say that. The reason I would not say that is because I want to identify my enemy to be able to know who and who to fight. Barrister Seyi (Akinwunmi) was a colleague for 8 years but we are not friends. I can’t call him my friend and I don’t think he can call me his friend either. But we can call each other brothers because once you are a stakeholder in football, you are my brother.

For us being brothers or belonging to the same family does not necessarily mean we are friends. He is a professional colleague. I did not challenge him to be chairman of Lagos State Football Association, I let my ambition known to be the chairman of the Lagos State FA because I feel and strongly think I can do better than him.

To me, it was not a challenge but if anybody feels it was a challenge, so be it. For me, I want the best for Lagos state football because I think if I am able to do the best for Lagos state football, I will be able to do for South West and if I am able to do it for the South West, then I will be able to do the best for Nigeria because I think that anything good in West Africa starts from Lagos.

What do you want to achieve with this case?

It is just for the boys especially Azeez Oseni to be given a fair chance as a player that has been certified to represent Nigeria. When I say certified, I mean by performance.

As a coach, my selection is usually based on three factors – performance, character and health.

If a player is healthy and the performance is good and the character is not bad, maybe average, he should be allowed to play ball. Dropping Azeez is criminal. When I say dropping him is criminal, I mean somebody did injustice to Nigeria. That boy is arguably the best midfielder in Lagos within his age category. That is U-17.

Nduka, MON and Manu, OON, both of them certified that Azeez is in their team based on his performance. That means that the boy scaled through over 500 players all over Nigeria and was a member of the team. In the MRI, he got grade 4 before WAFU B qualifiers. But they did not take him to WAFU because he was slightly sick before the WAFU and the coaches decided to drop him. But they told me, ‘please Alhaji, if we come back from WAFU victorious, Azeez will be an integral team going to Tanzania. So when the MRI test for Tanzania came out, it showed that Oseni is in grade 6. How can somebody be in grade 4 jump to 6? I asked doctors about it and they told me it was possible. I then decided to do my own MRI

Coming back to your question, my intention is for Nigerians to see the best thing that Lagos state football has produced when it comes to an attacking player. For Nigerians to see maybe the player that will get us the 2026 World Cup. 2022 is just around but I have faith that he maybe the player that will take Nigeria to 2026 World Cup final. When I mean final, I am talking about the last two teams standing. This boy needs to be seeing. That is the justice I want not only him but the other 5 players maliciously dropped. If they passed MRI, somebody should not drop them, somebody should not write their results. Somebody should not make a mistake.

So what I want to achieve is for Azeez to go to World Cup with the team and win the cup for Nigeria in Brazil.