Giwa’s NFF Appoints Dead Referee to Officiate NPFL Game

•  Rejects Dalung’s Reconciliation moves

Duro Ikhazuagbe

In a clear case of absurdity, the Chris Giwa group laying claim to the leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) wednesday listed a Nigerian referee who died since January 22, 2016 as one of the arbiters to officiate a Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) this weekend.
The said late referee, Wale Akinsanya passed on during the mandatory FIFA Cooper Test for match officials in Ibadan.

In a statement sent to the League Management Company (LMC) and signed by one Yahaya Adama, the late referee was listed to officiate as the centre referee of the clash between Warri Wolves and Giwa FC at the Warri City Stadium this weekend.

The late Ibadan-based referee was listed to be assisted by Tope .O from Osun State and Adeleke M of Oyo State in the game.

Earlier yesterday, the Giwa group had rejected the peace move by Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung to end the crisis in the administration of the game in the country by setting up a reconciliation Committee headed by former NFA President, Ibrahim Galadima.

In a statement signed by the group’s self christened Chairman of Chairmen, Effiong Johnson, it urged Nigerians to disregard the action of the minister, as it was to hoodwink football followers.

“In the first place, the minister is a party to the case in court as the fourth defendant and when the court by an Order made on April 8 2016 restored all its previous orders, including the order which nullified and set aside the election which purportedly produced Amaju Pinnick et al. The minister betrayed his partisanship in the dispute by wasting no time to hold brief for the Amaju Pinnick group in his erroneous and flawed public statement that the group was entitled to 30 days to appeal against the ruling of the court.

“The minister has thus lost the moral podium to midwife any settlement of the dispute. Secondly, the composition of the membership of the so-called reconciliation committee leaves no one in doubt that it was constituted only for a hatchet job for the Amaju Pinnick group,” he said.

Effiong added: “virtually all members of the committee are associates of the Amaju Pinnick group. For instance, Musa Amadu is not only a co-defendant with the minister in the case but is also the chairman of the Organising & Disciplinary Committee of the Amaju Pinnick group. Barrister Okey Obi has made statements in many fora on behalf of the Amaju Pinnick group and has also appeared in court as counsel to the defendants, while Paul Bassey is known to be an avowed supporter of the Amaju Pinnick group.”

Dalung inaugurated the reconciliation committee at the conference room of the National Stadium in Abuja, and charged them with the mandate of restoring peace to the crisis ridden Nigeria Football Federation.