On Monday, while stakeholders in Nigeria football went to sleep in peace, the football managers in the country, the Nigeria Football Federation, the only institution bestowed with nurturing, grooming, developing and expanding Nigeria football far and beyond the periphery of the country, decided to murder their own sleep, instead.

Since the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF Executive Committee Board came on board in 2014 via an election that had everything going for it but credibility, the federation has been swimming in a reckless oceans of perfidy.

This perfidy has metamorphosed into an untameable malady that has come to sniff life out of the rotten/sick NFF.

The decision by the NFF to set up a caretaker committee to oversee the affairs of the Anambra State Football Association, ANSFA negates all sense of fundamental reasoning and logical premises.

The perfidy so exhibited by the federation against all norms and statues depicts of an NFF leadership sliding into abyss of reckless and loss of sensibility.

The purported Caretaker Committee is not only an aberration and a sign of a federation seeking for crisis where none is, but a calculated treachery, duplicity, deceit, perfidiousness, deceitfulness, disloyalty, infidelity, faithlessness, unfaithfulness, betrayal, treason, falseness, falsity, double-dealing, dishonesty, two-facedness, untrustworthiness, breach of trust, false-heartedness and punic faith.

It is obvious, though crystal apparent to key observes and followers of the current NFF, that they do not only rejoice and savour the joy inherent in crisis but will do everything necessary to create one where none is.

For the avoidance of doubt, the process leading to the conduct of the Anambra State FA elections was set out two months ago. Enough time to enable all actors, participants, organisers, observers and stakeholders enough time to plan and work for the success of the election.

The election dates were set for July 27 and 28, 2020. Shocking, on the 27 of July, the Anambra State government issued a directive appealing to the actors to cancel the election in the meantime due to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic.

And with the extended tenure of then Executive Council Board elapsing on July 31st and the need to avoid a lacuna, the congress conducted elections on 27th July.

Spuriously, like a rattled snake, the NFF hurriedly issued a ridiculous press statement denouncing the election.

Report had it that the members of the Anambra State FA Electoral Committee where chased around the state and they all went hiding.

However, few days later, being law abiding citizens, the Electoral Committee came up with a new guideline in line with what is currently obtainable globally with the novel COVID-19 situation – virtual Election or E-voting.

Currently everywhere, village meetings are conducted via vitual means and NFF has more often than not conducted all its plethora of meetings since March via virtual.

The most recent virtual election that had significant impact in the country was the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA’s in which a new leadership emerged against the existing tradition. Heaven was not let loose.

While stakeholders are commending the ANSFA Electoral Committee for being innovative and pragmatic in making the best use of the current unsettling situation, sadly, the NFF had other intention. And not long enough, they vomited it.

The setting up of a Caretaker Committee to oversee the administration of the ANSFA is not only worrisome but stupifying leading to series of questions that yearn for answers.

Does NFF have right to overturn the decision of Anambra FA Congress?

Assuming the answer is yes, this leads to another one, does the NFF has the right to upturn the election of an Electoral Committee it setup without complaints or petition against the results of the election?

How come that the same NFF that cited non compliance with COVID-19 guidelines on the July 27 election turn down an election virtually conducted on August 2?

Does the NFF have the right, statutorily, to interfere in the affairs of Football Associations activities?

Are state FAs not independent of the NFF as explicitly enunciated in the NFF/FIFA rules?

If FIFA won’t interfere in Member Association’s internal affairs as we saw in the 2014 NFF elections in Warri, Delta State where a request by the NFF to FIFA appealing for the world body to send delegates to monitor the election was not heeded and yet result accepted despite obvious dubious shenanigans, is NFF thus justified in this comedy of malady?

The Anambra state FA Electoral Committee is Independent of the Board and NFF, and their decision is superior to any opinion NFF may have.

The Congress empowered the Electoral Committee to conduct a Virtual Election which a lot of organization have embraced due to Covid19 outbreak. The Electoral Committee with due consultation and reaching out to the NFF, conducted the Virtual Election with all participation of the Congress Members except those that have been alleged to have compromised like the Anambra FA Secretary.

The above situations leads us to these worries; why have NFF not set up a Caretaker Committee for Ondo, Rivers, Taraba, and even Kano states Football Associations’ administrations where there are issues in court?

It’s a pity that the NFF will go against itself and release that sick press release on the Anambra State FA election.

State FA Electoral Committees are not only independent but must have the full capacity to exercise this right unhindered.

They decide how best to conduct election. So what’s the big deal in doing it virtually in Anambra State?

The Congress of any FA is the highest decision making body and if they say tenure extends until any election, it stands and amen

When screening and everything was done by the Electoral Committee nobody turned up against the incumbent. Three days to Election they came trying to flip the script.

Can the NFF explain the ‘Force Majeure’ in this Anambra FA case?

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The government said, no physical election because of Covid19. The Electoral Committee had their decision and it’s only the Electoral Committee that has the right to give reason for a force majeure. The report of the Electoral Committee will form the decision of the NFF and not someone quoting what suite their agenda.

Ridiculously ignominious is the fact that the Chairman of the purported Caretaker Committee appointed by the NFF, Mr. Emeka Okeke participated in the Virtual Election where he scored two votes and lost out.

Have the men in NFF lost their sense of wisdom or are they overpowered by reckless and unbridled quest for power perpetuity?

The malady shown by NFF in the Anambra State FA election is not only a perfidy but a stupifying hunger for unmerited authority.