Crisis rocks Nigeria football federation, members of staff set for showdown
By Abdulgafar Oladimeji
The allegations of discrimination and favoritism in the allotment of foreign trips and lopsided staff welfare packages has stirred up resentments amongst members of staff of the Nigeria Football Federation. NFF.
Nigeria’s online sports news platform, sportsunlimed,ng, on January 23 , 2025 reported that, in the aftermath of the just ended Morocco 2025 Afcon , fracas had began to brew amongst members of staff over alleged unending biases in the conduct of the affairs of the federation by its egg heads.
The medium disclosed that factions loyal to the federation president, Ibrahim Gusau have drawn the battle lines against their peers that are perceived to be loyal to the federation’s Secretary General , Mohammad Sanusi.
The aggrieved parties have drawn their daggers set for an showdown that would pull down the roof at the federation, reports stated.
One of the aggrieved factions have accused Mohammed Sanusi , the executive officer of the federation of being vindictive , discriminatory , alongside his alleged official dealings with unauthorized persons .
The factions are bent for an war over who takes control of affairs at the federation.
Reports revealed that at the core of the crisis are members of staff recruited at the instances and influence of the duo of Ibrahim Gusau and Mohammed Sanusi, president and secretary general of the federation respectively.
The faction opposed to Sanusi lamented that , only those loyal to the secretary general were been accorded the special priviledge of being ferried to Morocco as back room staff at the just ended Afcon tournament held in Morocco.
They further alleged that , official laid out office hierarchy and the officially assigned duty roles have been thrown to the trash compactor.
Adding that , in decision making, members of staff that have retired from active service were been smuggled back into the system and assigned with crucial duties at the expense of staff members, who are active and still on the payroll of the federation.
NFF staff that are not in the good books of the secretary general were also shielded from discharging their duly supposed official assignments, especially when such roles are considered to be “ juicy” at home and overseas.
A Gusau loyalist, who spoke with this reporter on the condition of anonymity said “ Gusau my boss is far away in Morocco for the Afcon, the SG and his boy are in Morocco, we the Gusau boys were technically excluded from the trip.
“this is now the pattern at the federation, you need to be loyal to Sansui, Gusau himself seems to be helpless and that is the way to pay us back for the support and loyalty, we are watching, it is a matter of time,”
Another set of NFF staff that have continued to express their grievances are those been tagged as ministry staff, these are set of staff from the federal government sports parastatals working at the federation.
The ministry staff as they are fondly called are also fuming over their claims of sufferings from long time neglect, leading to redundancy , intimidation and harassment from those they have tagged as Gusau and Sanusi “boys”
Sahel sports news investigations revealed that , NFF currently has the total strength staff of 94 personnel spread across as follows , account/ finance 15 staff , administration three staff, maintenance one staff , transport section four staff , store house one staff , casual , NYSC, and IT students 70 staff.
Disturbing news from the federation is the resolve by the core civil servants in the NFF, who have now vowed to put an end to what they described as the continuous importation of some persons to usurp their official roles and duties.
They accused Sansi and Gusau of exposing the confidentiality of government work to persons that have not signed the oath of secrecy, which is mandatory as provided for in the Nigerian civil service laws.
The NFF leadership under Ibrahim Gusau is accused of grossly suppressing the career of core civil servants for casual workers, the act is responsible for the brewing interna crisis and the slumbering combustion in NFF.
