Minister orders Baribote to withdraw suit against NFF

The Minister of Sports and Chairman of the National Sports Commission, Dr Tamuno Danagogo has called on the feuding factions in the Nigeria Football Federation to do the needful in order to avert further sanctions against Nigeria from the world football governing body, FIFA. To begin with, the Minister has called on Mrs Rumson Baribote to withdraw the suit against the NFF from the Jos High Court to ensure that FIFA does not suspend Nigeria. In a statement made available to Sports Vanguard the Minister said, "We want to assure the plaintiffs in court, the aggrieved faction in the NFF and the general public that government will stop at nothing to ensure that Nigeria is not suspended." The Minister, however, delved into other issues that may have led to the court case, assuring all sides of justice and fair play. "Government will ensure that NFF is thoroughly sanitized and the complaints of unbridled corruption and highhandedness by the NFF leadership is addressed." He said "in furtherance of that, we shall immediately set in motion a machinery to ensure that the parties are persuaded to withdraw the case and suspension is lifted," and "to encourage the Nigeria Olympic Committee to quickly activate the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS)." This, the Minister reasoned, was necessary to check the circle of disputes, court cases and suspension threats from FIFA, a development brought about by the fact that aggrieved parties in the NFF have no where to resort to for redress. FIFA does not permit settlement of football disputes in civil courts and there is no active Court of Arbitration for Sports in Nigeria. "This leaves aggrieved parties at the mercy of the NFF leadership who are the complainants, judge and jury against any member of the NFF who complains against any form of corruption and highhandedness and as such, in often cases, are visited with bans and other forms of punishment contrary to the dictates of fair hearing ad justice," the statement added,. The NSC boss promised to look into allegations of "unbridled corruption" against the leadership of the NFF, "in view of the fact that FIFA also abhors corruption." 4. We want to assure Nigerians that the sole motive of government is to promote the game of football and ensure that sanity prevails in the management of government resources deployed for the promotion of Sports. We believe that at the end of the day, our sports in general and the game of football in particular will come out better and stronger. We therefore thank the Nigerian populace, the media, the football stakeholders and indeed, the teeming sports lovers for their support and patience while this dispute persists.