The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) electoral committee has withdrawn the clearance given to Alhaji Aminu Maigari, former President of the Federation and a candidate for the post of president in the election scheduled to take place today in Katsina.
Maigari is contesting the presidency alongside incubent Amaju Pinnick, Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi and Mr Chinedu Okoye, proprietor of Bimo Sporting Club.
The withdrawal of the unconditional clearance earlier given to Maigari was as a result of the petition written by a football administrator and former chairman of Gombe State Football Association, Shuaibu Gara-Gombe and Mr Chuma Onye on September 14, 2018 and September 17, 2018 respectively and the inability of Maigari to submit the original copy of his certificate as agreed before the electoral committee on September 17.
However, as contained in the letter dated September 19, 2018 signed by the chairman NFF’s electoral committee, Muhammed Sani Katu and made available to Tribunesport, the committee issued Maigari a provisional clearance to contest in today’s election.
“The committee on receiving the petitions on Alhaji Aminu Maigari gave him between September 15 and 17 to appear before it for clearification. He said to us by telephone upon receiving the petition and our request to appear that he will come on the 15th.
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“However, as at 18th of September, Alhaji Aminu Maigari failed to produce the said original documents,” part of the letter read.
“As a result of this development, the committee resolved that the documents submitted by Alhaji Aminu Maigari (the two Grade Three certificate) which are attached to the petitions are indeed not the same both in substance and in content with each other. In fact they are contradictory. Also that the said certificate that was submitted to the committee was in contravention of Article 5(1)(i) of the guideline for the NFF executive committee election 2018 and that the clearance earlier given to Alhaji Aminu Maigari to contest for the office of the President of Nigeria Football Federation is hereby substituted for a provisional clearance.”
Meanwhile, effort to speak with Maigari on the issue yielded no fruits, as the message sent to his mobile telephone line for his reaction had not been responded to at the time of filing this report.