Amaju Pinnick remains the President of the Nigeria Football Federation despite a purported verdict from the Supreme Court asking him to vacate the position, NFF lawyer said.
Festus Keyamo, who is the counsel to the NFF said on Friday that there was no order from the Supreme Court sacking Pinnick as the President of country’s football governing body.
In several tweets, Mr Keyamo by the NFF, the Supreme Court majorly ruled that the lingering legal tussle between the Chris Giwa faction and the present NFF board be referred back to the Federal High Court to be tried properly.
Mr Keyamo, who warned against causing unnecessary panic within the football family, was unequivocal that the Supreme Court did not nulify AMAJU ‘s Election.
He said: “Nobody should cause unnecessary panic in Nigeria’s football. That’s my case. Supreme Court DID NOT NULLIFY AMAJU ‘s Election. The Supreme Court did NOT remove Amaju from office. 1/3- @fkeyamo Counsel to NFF.
“The Supreme Court only referred the case back to the Federal High Court to be tried properly to know which of the elections held in 2014 was right. 2/3 -@fkeyamo Counsel to NFF.
“Amaju was NOT a party to the case at the Supreme Court so the court could not have removed a party from office without joining the party and hearing from the party.- Barrister @fkeyamo, Counsel to NFF. 3/3”
Chris Giwa and his board had dragged the current board of the NFF to the Supreme Court to set aside the verdict of the Appeal Court after they had won at the High Court, claiming that the mandate given to them at the Chida Hotel, Abuja by the congress of the NFF in August 2013 was sacrosanct.
They also insist that the Warri election that brought in the Amaju group was held in defiance of a High Court order while asking the Supreme Court to uphold the Chida Hotel election as the defendants cannot gain from disobedience of a court order.
World football governing body, FIFA, had last year (February 2017), banned five Nigerian football administrators; Christopher Giwa, Muazu Suleyman, Yahaya Adama, Sani Fema and Johnson Effiong for five years for breaching the Nigerian Football Federation’s Statutes and the FIFA Code of Ethics.
The ban has worldwide effect, FIFA said, when they were pronounced at the height of the legal tussle between the present board and the disgruntled faction.
