The headquarters of the crisis-ridden Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in Wuse Zone 7, Abuja, has been gutted by fire.
The fire gutted the Account Office and part of the Secretary-General’s Office.
The sad development was confirmed by a 4pm Radio Nigeria network news report, which quoted some NFF staffers as revealing that the fire was first noticed around 10am.
The report quoted NFF Chairman Aminu Maigari, who only returned to work two weeks ago, as vowing to get to the root of the matter.
The NFF has been rocked by crisis since after the Brazil 2014 World Cup (June 12 - July 13) from which Nigeria exited in the second round. Since then, some NFF board members led by Vice Chairman, Chief Mike Umeh, have engineered a crisis aimed at illegally removing the Chairman, Alhaji Aminu Maigari.
Maigari was declared impeached on July 24 but world football governing body FIFA declared it null and void. FIFA also directed that the planned August 26 elections must hold on the said date, with Maigari and his team supervising.
It was the second time in about a month that FIFA would be intervening to reinstate Maigari. The world soccer governing body had on July 9 suspended Nigeria from all international football due to government interference in the country’s football federation after the Maigari-led board was sacked and replaced by a sole administrator after a suspicious court judgement.
Maigari was reinstated to prevent a full ban, only for him to be impeached shortly thereafter and replaced with Vice President Mike Umeh.
•Photo shows the NFF Glass House on fire.
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