By Joe Apu
Former chairman of the Gombe State Football Association, Ahmed Shuaibu Gara Gombe, has appealed to interested persons eyeing the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) presidency in the election expected to hold later in the year to exercise restraint.
No less than five aspirants including the current NFF vice President Shehu Dikko, Benedick Akuegbu, Peterside Idah, Jonathan Akpoborire and Chris Emeruwa have so far indicated interest in the NFF top job, although Gara Gombe considers their action as hasty.
Gombe in a statement made available to Sunday SunSports noted that the declarations are coming too early. “I think it is rather too early for such declaration to be made by any one yet. There is the issue of statute that has not been sorted while the NFF Congress would still have to seat and draw out the electoral guidelines as well as announce the election date,” he said.
“Whatever any one is doing at this time with regard to the election is hasty and it cannot amount to anything tangible at least for now,” the astute football administrator also said.
Gara Gombe has at different times been two-time chairman of Gombe United Football Club, member of Gombe State Sports Council Board, Secretary General of Nigeria Football Stakeholders Forum, Special Adviser on Sports Development to former Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and is the youngest Match Commissioner in the history of Nigeria football after commissioning his first match aged 28 years in Ibadan.
Indications however emerged recently that Nigeria football stakeholders at home and in the diaspora who comprised politicians, civil servants, diplomats and key figures in Corporate Nigeria had encouraged him to declare interest in the NFF job having assessed that the major challenges bedeviling the country’s football over the years required a credible administrator who is fearless, courageous, passionate and sincere at the helm.