Maigari " i never ordered Owumi’s arrest "

The president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Aminu Maigari, has denied reports that he had ordered the arrest of Davidson Owumi, the recently sacked boss of the Nigeria Premier League (NPL).

Owumi was asked to quit his position as the chairman of the NPL by the NFF who last week, at the end of its General Assembly in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, announced that the elections which brought the former player and management staff of Enugu Rangers to office had been annulled.

Along with the order ending Owumi’s eight month reign, the NFF also ordered fresh polls for the vacant chairmanship position, as well as the position of Chairman of Chairmen, to be conducted within 14 days even as it passed a vote of confidence on the remaining board members of the NPL, who were mandated to continue to run the affairs of the league body.

Owumi, who had been in a running battle with Rumson Baribote following the outcome of the disputed NPL elections, however, said he was dissatisfied with the order from the NFF annulling his election which preceded reports in the media quoting sources within the NFF as stating that he, Owumi, would be arrested by the State Security Service (SSS) if he defies the NFF’s order by continuing to parade himself as the boss of the league body.

It wasn’t me

The order was reportedly issued by Maigari but the NFF boss has come out to deny the “malicious” reports saying that neither he, Maigari, nor the NFF as a body, has the authority to issue such an order.

“There is no way I could have ordered such,” he said. “I have no right to issue such an order; nobody in the NFF can issue such an order, so I have no idea how those malicious reports came about.

“The initial order annulling the election was issued not by me, but by the General Assembly who acted based on the recommendations of an arbitration panel headed by a respected professor,” added Maigari, referring to the arbitration tribunal set up by the NFF in the early days of the leadership tussle between Owumi and Baribote.

Baribote, who was only recently reinstated as the chairman of Bayelsa United by the Bayelsa State government following his October 2010 removal, had all along argued that Owumi was not suitably qualified to contest for the position of the chairman of the NPL as he was not on the board of any Nigerian Premier League side as at the time the elections took place last year at Abuja’s Lamonde Hotel.

Owumi was endorsed by the Enugu State government ahead of the NPL polls even though he had at that point in time ceased to be a member of the board of Enugu Rangers.