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By Joe Apu
Football in Nigeria has remained the one spot that have unified the citizens and while the federal government keeps its part of the bargain in ensuring that all the teams in the Nigeria Football Federation attends most international events, the immediate past administration under the leadership of Melvin Amaju Pinnick has come under investigations by the EFCC and the ICPC.
How the case has fared remains a mystery to many especially Harrison Jalla who has been in the forefront of unraveling how funds meant for football developed wings.
In this interview, he tells our reporter his findings and how he has suffered threats and yet remained resolute to see the end of the matter.
Enjoy the interview.
You have been in the forefront of the fight against corruption in the football house. How much are we looking at specifically?
We are looking at just two levels of funding. Let us leave out the budgetary allocations appropriated by the national assembly annually through the federation’s account and special intervention funds from the federal government periodically.
The two levels are streams of funds through FIFA, CAF grants and sponsorships of both the NFF and NPFL between 2014 and 2022 is about $100m while sponsorship is over N50BN.
You did talk about several peace moves to stop you from proceeding with the petition and even threats to your life, what has kept you going?
I give thanks to God for my life. I have never really bothered about the threats to my life, intimidation and harassment. You know what it is when you fight your own kins men in Nigeria , particularly a fellow who has a deceitful capacity and influence to turn your ethnic nationality against you . The mantra has always been you cannot fight your own brother. God gave me the courage to look beyond the distraction and focused my commitment to drive a change in the administration of Nigerian Football.
What is the role of the EFCC in all of these?
The EFCC did their investigation and indicted the suspects but went ahead to deliberately prosecute the wrong people. Staffers of the NFF who were acting on their bosses instructions to divert the NFF’s misappropriated funds. There is no case there because the main suspects and principal officers where allegedly shielded by the former AGF who arm twisted the EFCC not to prosecute the suspects. The ICPC is on track in their investigation, they got the right suspects and principal officers in their net, found merit in our petitions and moved swiftly to seize properties of the suspects in public advertorial dated “Monday September 16th 2019” in the Guardian and Daily Trust and was signed by the former chairman of ICPC Professor Bolaji Owasanoye. The challange to the Nigerian regular sports media is to ask the ICPC Why it has not prosecuted the suspects? Why did the ICPC become clay footed in prosecuting these suspects since investigations where concluded in 2021?
How did the suspects behind the looted funds get off the hook even when they had been indicted?
This question is for the media to probe further because we the whistle blowers who put our lives on the line would not allow the suspects to go scot-free. We the whistle blowers are supposed to be protected by the whistle blowers ACT but that is not the case in this matter. We have been exposed to threats to our lives, intimidation, blackmail and harassment.
Is it that members of the NFF board in the time in question were not aware of the release of funds by FIFA and CAF?
Those we have as NFF board members cannot be referred to as board members in the true sense of the word; same applies to the NFF Congress members. Both are assemblies of charlatans. That is why urgent reforms in Nigerian football administration are the way to go.
The system must be open to competent Nigerians in all professional fields relevant to football to participate. As it stands today, it is only one constituency that is running Nigerian football, the states’ F.A chairmen and they are very incompetent and naive, this is not acceptable. There are no checks and balances in the system that is why principal officers of the NFF can loot its treasury at will with funds that can comfortably plant infrastructures across Nigeria.
It’s said that he who goes to equity must do so with clean hands. There have been talks in the past that you were not transparent with grants from FIFPRO. How true is this?
That is not true, the very short period the players union under my watch got grants from FIFPRO the funds were specifically tailored and measured to office running cost only. The kind of secretariat , number of staff etc is specified and properly accounted for periodically. Nigeria was running one of the best corporate offices at 66 Campbell Street Lagos under my watch and when FIF-PRO came for inspection, they rated it as one of the best functional office before NFF came with their policy of divide and rule to factionalize the players union.
What would be your way forward to put things in proper perspective given that with all the grants, the NFF still gets funds from the government?
The way forward is to recover the misappropriated funds, invest it on infrastructure and distribute to football clubs at all levels. The focus is not the funding from the federal government even though we know that in spite of funds from the federal government, state governments like Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Edo in a double budget manner funded the NFF activities between 2014-2022.
The AFCON 2023 is just around the corner, how prepared do you think the Super Eagles are?
I have faith in our players and the ongoing preparations. Our boys are in top shape and going into the tournament with the current African footballer of the year Victor Osimhen which will boost the chances of the Super Eagles.
Are you confident that Coach Jose Peseiro can get the job done?
The only drawback for me is Coach Jose Paseiro. I have absolutely no confidence in his ability he might just be the spoiler with the array of stars we have. But I pray he proves me wrong.
Finally, can you confirm that there is unity in the players Union in which you are a major actor to the crisis?
The disunity in the players union is inflicted and induced by the NFF and they did this by weaponizing poverty and hunger as a tool against ex-players. They fund hungry and disgruntled ex-players to form factions to fight against themselves while they looted the NFF treasury.
But all that will stop soon as players union is one in every country of the world, Nigeria’s case cannot be different . PFAN is working to bring an end to this trend soon.
