Raphael Ekpang
Barr. Leornard Igbokwe has expressed worried over what he called un-necessary delay of the Nigeria Football Federation election appeal committee in coming up with a decision on the 13 counts petition he filed against the conduct of the Warri election, alleging that Sen Ayim Pius Ayim (SGF) and sports minister, Dr. Tammy Danagogo are trying to influence the decision of the committee.
Igbokwe who is the leading petitioner against the election that brought Amaju Pinnick onboard as the NFF president and his board told the journalists over the weekend that it has become imperative for him to asked Nigerians to ask Barr. Okey Ajunwa why the delay in coming up with a decision in a case that was publicly heard by the committee for two days.
“After two days public hearing on the 13 counts petition I filed against NFF election, which myself as the appellant and Pinnick the first respondent and all other parties were there and we moved our cases accordingly, two weeks after we were expecting bearing the urgency of the matter and the interest of Nigeria towards the particular case that by now we should hear something from the committee but, that has never be,” he said.
On the rumorse making round the country that some top place government officials are trying to influence the decision of the appeal committee, Igbokwe said, it is unfortunate that people like the secretary to the government of the federation, Sen. Ayim Pius Ayim and the minister of Sports Dr. Tammy Danagogo are allegedly trying to influence the decision of Okey Ajunwa led appeal committee.
With all the avalanche evident before the appeal committee that after about one week we are still waiting for the committee on the issue of reaching the decision, and more worrisome are the recent remorse that has past the stage of rumorse and making around that the country that some top government officials are mounting pressure on the appeal committee chairman to either not release the decision of the committee or not to do the right thing.
“I mean specifically, the secretary to the government of the federation, Sen. Ayim and Dr. Danagogo the sports minister, we have concrete evident that these two gentlemen purporting to be working for the government which I don’t believe, are putting pressure on a judicial body to influence a decision and my problem with this influence is that the two gentlemen are, lawyers like myself who know that a judicial body is not to be influence by anybody.” He said.
Meanwhile, Danagogo while responding to Igbokwe’s claims that he was influencing the decision of the appeal committee said, he has no right to do so whatsoever, but went further to asked Igbokwe via a text message “I hope I’m not dealing with a mental case.” He continues, “Please see the Psychiatry before you go naked.”
Responding, Barr. Okey Ajunwa debunked insinuation that Sen. Ayim and the honourable minister of sports, Dr. Danagogo are trying to influence his report. He said, “Nobody is trying to influence our reports and no one knows what we have in our report so how can they influence it.” He queried.
However, he said the petitions are voluminous so they are trying to do a good job, saying that he has written about 48 pages of the report already waiting to read through other papers before compiling the final report.
He revealed further that part of the delayed in the report is the Nigeria versus South Africa match last Wednesday, according to him, Pinnick pleaded with his committee to respond to Dikko’s petition after the match. Meanwhile, Ajunwa assured Nigerians to be calm that the reports would surely come in due course.
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