NFF Sets up Normalisation Committee for Akwa Ibom FA

A Normalisation Committee is to be set up by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to plan the election of members to run the Akwa Ibom State Football Association.

Board Member of the NFF and Chairman of Chairmen, Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau, said in Uyo on Tuesday that as far as the “NFF was concerned, elections did not hold in Akwa Ibom, so a Normalisation Committee will be put in place in the next 48 hours to work towards holding a free and fair election in the state,” observed the NFF board member.

Alhaji Gusau who was in the company with NFF Technical Committee Member, Mr Paul Bassey, had earlier addressed stakeholders in the state on the anomaly that led to the illegal election that was purported to have been held.

He said on the receipt of protests and petitions, the NFF waded into the matter and asked that the election be postponed until all the pending cases were resolved, consequent upon which no member of the NFF electoral committee was in the state to supervise the elections.

“It is unfortunate that the secretariat of the state FA feigned ignorance of the NFF directive preferring instead to go ahead with the election that disenfranchised majority of the stakeholders,” he further noted.

Representatives of the coaches, players, sportswriters, referees and clubs spoke, expressing dissatisfaction with the way the elections were conducted in a clandestine manner.

Some members tendered protests duly submitted and signed but were not treated.

In his comment, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Sports, Mr Isong Isang, said the meeting should chart a way forward because there was no doubt that all was not well with the elections, since he, even as Akwa United chairman was kept in the dark about the conduct of the elections including the publishing of the list of delegates that was not done prior to the elections.

In his defense, the immediate past Chairman of the state FA, Mr Effiong Johnson, claimed the elections were free and fair and that he was a victim of politics.