It was an intriguing period last week as those involved in the construction of the incomplete Birin-Kebbi Stadium made every effort to persuade Nigerians that the NFF had very little to do with the building of the sports facility. There were fruitless attempts to persuade us that FIFA traveled to Nigeria to construct the stadium. The story that the NFF did not embezzle the $1.2 million from FIFA for the project is still being promoted by individuals who believe the rest of us are naive, even though the majority of us are aware that this is practically impossible.For the majority of us, nevertheless, the light that was shed on the Birin-Kebbi Stadium brought back memories of the long-forgotten Ugborodo Stadium. Therefore, we are reminded that something worse has occurred elsewhere in Delta and that immediate action must be made to remedy it, even if nothing is ultimately done about the current status of the stadium in Kebbi.Amaju Pinnick, a former president of the NFF and member of the FIFA Executive Committee, is at the center of the controversially stalled Ugborodo Stadium, despite claims that the NFF has no involvement in the development of facilities allocated to Nigeria by FIFA. We all know that Pinnick’s NFF hired Monimichelle, a respectable sports facilities construction company owned by Mr. Ebi Egbe, to build the stadium with FIFA’s approval. However, instead of a small stadium, we have a dirty war over funds that FIFA approved and released for the project.The CEO of the company, who has subsequently taken legal action, is demanding the whole sum to return to the site, even though the NFF has since declared the termination of the contract issued to Monimichelle. In actuality, the NFF claimed to have paid $700,000—more than half of the contract amount—but Egbe has only admitted receiving $500,000. It has also claimed that the NFF actually withheld $200,000 in taxes.
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