Maigari’s tenure as NFF president encouraged inappropriateness – Onigbinde

Former coach of Nigeria’s national team Adegboye Onigbinde, has said that Alhaji Aminu Maigari’s tenure as president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), encouraged inappropriateness in the Glass House.

Maigari was impeached yesterday, after the executive committee accused him of “uncalled-for secrecy surrounding all financial dealings of the Federation and failure to call meeting of the Executive Committee for the past eight (8) months, during which so many weighty decisions on Nigeria football had been taken by a small cabal within the Board”.

Onigbinde said the saga is not over and called for privatisation of the clubs to reduce the influence of government.

“This is not the end of the story. I foresee another ugly development in the NFF sooner or later. Removing Maigari is just a reflection of the poor structure of Nigerian football,” Onigbinde told Punch.

“The only positive thing about this is that he was removed by the NFF executives, so there’s no need to fear any backlash from FIFA. But this has shown that we’re far from getting it right with Nigerian football.

“The only way to ensure this kind of problem doesn’t come up again is to completely privatise the clubs; completely reduce government influence in the clubs.

“Maigari somehow encouraged the inappropriateness in the NFF. He was leading the NFF from behind. Sometimes he didn’t know what his assistants were doing.

“I remember I spoke with him during the CHAN tournament in South Africa, and I asked why the domestic leagues were suspended due to the CHAN. He told me he didn’t know the leagues were suspended, and obviously he didn’t approve it.

“He also didn’t know how the technical committee were meeting, especially when they met on several occasions without including me, who was a member, and some other members.”