The turmoil in Nigerian football
deepened further on Tuesday with the detention of Football Federation
(NFF) president Aminu Maigari by security services in Abuja, which meant
he could not preside over a general assembly slated for Tuesday.
The
58-year-old was detained along with general secretary Musa Amadu and
executive committee member Chris Green by the Directorate of State
Service, before Amadu was later released.
"We could not get any reason for their detention," said top official Emeka Inyama.
Maigari was to have presided over a congress that was to design a new road map for elections onto the NFF executive committee.
World football governing body FIFA approved for Maigari to lead the 44-man congress to decide a new election date.
August
26 was no longer a feasible option because a majority of stakeholders
were denied access to nomination forms and most observers agreed the
electoral process was fraudulent.
At least 37 state FA
chairmen attempted to reach Maigari at the security service office, but
they were prevented from doing so and therefore did not attend a meeting
which the country's sports minister Tammy Danagogo addressed.
Danagogo,
who has insisted that elections be conducted on Tuesday, announced
Maigari has quit as Nigeria football boss which will not go down well
with FIFA as they abhor political interference in footballing matters
and who only lifted the suspension of Nigeria from their body in July.
It
is not the first time the government has tried to remove Maigari as
they sought to have him impeached at the end of July only for them to
fail to get the required number of votes to achieve this.
FIFA
originally suspended Nigeria on July 9 after a Nigerian court sacked
the NFF and the government appointed a sole administrator for the
country's football shortly after the Super Eagles returned from Brazil
where they went out in the second round of the World Cup finals
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