The Elective Congress of the Nigeria Football Federation that produced Ibrahim Gusau as the 36^thPresident of the NFF attracted interest far beyond the football fraternity as the polls degenerated into a straight battle between the ruling All Progressives Congress and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, Saturday Telegraph has learnt. The intrigues and manipulations that characterized the buildup to the poll were orchestrated by big wigs in both political parties as they fought to ensure the top job went to their loyalists.

Gusau, the eventual winner of the poll, our correspondent reliably learnt, is a card-carrying member of the PDP and he was extremely aided to the position by chieftains of his party including his predecessor Amaju Pinnick who sold his candidacy to others. Saturday Telegraph gathered APC was worried that a member of the PDP had been in charge of critical parastatal in the ministry of sports and he was about to be succeeded by another stakeholder of the party, hence the need to galvanise support for one of their own to assume the position.

However, Pinnick who rooted for Gusau on behalf of his political party served the first joker by taking the election to Edo State which is controlled by the PDP and Govenor Godwin Obaseki through his deputy Phillip Suaibu provided the logistics and war chest that ensured the victory for Gusau.

“The APC was rooting for Shehu Akinwunmi who was the 1^stvice president to Pinnick. But the Gusau project had been taken over by the PDP and they also got the collaboration of the Governor of Delta State Ifeanyi Okowa who is the current vice presidential candidate of the opposition party for the 2023 general elections. “Okowa allegedly provided the war chest to ward off challenges from the APC and was also supported by one or two other PDP governors,” a source told our correspondent.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State was said to have led the group of APC chieftains supporting Akinwunmi but a combination of failure to effectively compete with the PDP team financially and betrayal from voters from the South especially two FA chairmen from the South-West ensured that the opposition party’s team carried the day. Gusau polled 21 votes in the first round of the election to defeat Akinwunmi who scored 12.

The Lagos State Football Association Chairman refused to participate in the second ballot as his Zamfara FA boss counterpart coasted home to victory. Another source said two Super Eagles players also donated millions of naira to Gusau to support his presidential ambition. “The two players are from the Northern part of the country; I can’t give you the exact figure of how much they donated to the project but it runs into millions of naira,” he said.

The source also confirmed to our correspondent that another angle to the intrigues that characterised the build-up to the election was that the contestants extracted a commitment from voters by asking them to swear by the Holy Books that they will cast their votes for them after collecting money which served as inducements. “A lot of money flew around during the election; another interesting thing is that some of the voters who were approached for votes by the contestants were made to swear by the Holy Books that they would cast their ballot for the candidates they have collected money from. “Some of these voters collected money and still didn’t vote for these candidates. As I speak to you the aspirants have forced the delegates to return the cash they collected as inducement,” another source informed our correspondent. (Saturday Telegraph)