Maigari's tenure encouraged inappropriateness, says Onigbinde

   

The respected Nigeria football advocate has fingered the impeached NFF president for not waking up to his responsibilities while in office

As Nigerians continue to react to the impeachment of Aminu Maigari as president of the Nigeria Football Federation, former Fifa technical committee member Adegboye Onigbinde has revealed that Maigari’s tenure in office encouraged inaptness. The plot to impeach the former president of the NFF came to fruition on Thursday as eight (8) of the 13 board members of the Federation voted in favour of his impeachment in what seemed like a mini palace coup conducted at the Board Room of the secretariat in Abuja.
Onigbinde also said that even at the impeachment, it will not bring an end to the problems engulfing the country’s football governing body.

"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,” he continued.
"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,” he concluded.