Anambra FA Saga: Youth and Sports Ministry intervenes, Urges NFF to uphold Ifeanyi Ubah’s election

The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports has declared its support for the reelection of Senator Dr. Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah as the Chairman of Anambra State Football Association.
The Ministry made this known in a statement titled “Resolution of the Ministerial Meeting on the Anambra State Football Association”.

According to the statement dated 15th October, 2020 and signed by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr Gabriel Aduda, after a meeting that had representatives of the Nigerian Football Association (NFF), the Secretary of the Anambra State Football Association and its members, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah and his delegates, and the Chairman of the Anambra State Sports Development Commission in attendance, the Ministry clearly reviewed facts presented by various camps involved and found no error in the declaration of Senator Ubah as the winner of the virtual election conducted by the Anambra State Football Association in line with the guidelines of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and consequently, it advised the NFF to uphold the result of the election and channel grievances (if any) to the electoral committee in line with the NFF statute and extant laws.

The Ministry further revealed that the meeting observed that the issue of amendment to the guidelines for elections into states football association is an exclusive right of the congress of the state football associations in accordance with Article 20 of the NFF statutes and that the said article has been tested by the NFF in its June 18, 2019 directive to the Katsina State Football Association.

The meeting further observed that when the Anambra State Football Association was stopped from conducting the election physically, it summoned an extraordinary congress meeting the following day and as a result, conducted a virtual election that had 98% of congress members in attendance, and that Senator Ifeanyi Ubah contested and won the position of Anambra State Football Association Chairman in the virtual election.

With the Ministry’s intervention and observations, it is expected that the NFF will do the needful and put the crises to a permanent end.

We may recall that the Distinguished Senator who is a CAF member has been the pillar of sports development in Anambra State  and has been singlehandely sponsoring the Anambra State FA activities  for several years now .