NFF Crisis: Court Adjourns Case Against Pinnick, Others To September 25

A Federal High Court sitting in Jos has adjourned the case brought before it against Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President Amaju Pinnick and others to September 25.

The decision was made on Tuesday by Justice Musa Kurya during the latest court ruling on the case.

On June 5, Justice Kurya, the Presiding Judge in the case between Yahaya Adama and Alhaji Aminu Maigari and three others had made an ex-perte order asking the Pinnick-led NFF board to vacate the Glass House for the Ambassador Chris Giwa-led faction.

The order prompted Pinnick’s counsel, Festus Keyamo (SAN) to storm the court on July 5 with two motions, demanding for the vacation of the order until an application challenging the court’s jurisdiction to hear the case has been ruled upon.

However, the motions could not be heard, as a result of the objection by counsel to Adama and others, and this led to the case’s adjournment until Tuesday, July 10.

When the case resurfaced again on Tuesday, Keyamo announced himself as the representative for Maigari and Ahmadu, the first and second defendants, as well as Pinnick only for him to be challenged by a new counsel, Shangyula Samuel, who told the court that he would be representing the defendants.

Keyamo thereafter withdrew his earlier announcement as the defendants’ representative after much argument and was left to represent Pinnick alone.

He went ahead to withdraw his earlier motion filed on May 28, asking for Justice Kurya to step down so that the Chief Justice of the Federation (CJN) will be able to assign the case to another judge.

This move led to another round of argument as the aforementioned Samuel and Adama’s counsel, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN), raised objections.

Samuel later told the court that he doesn’t know much about the case and that he could not continue.

In his words, Samuel said: “My Lord, I am just coming into the matter for the first time and would need more time to enable me to study it very well before making any meaningful submission.”

Justice Kurya then adjourned the case to September 25 despite Keyamo’s objection to the earlier statement made by Shangyula Samuel.

Keyamo warned the court about what the failure to address the NFF crisis with urgency could cause as he revealed that world football’s governing body, FIFA has already warned Nigeria to do the right thing or risk sanction via a letter.

Justice Kurya addressed his concerns by telling both parties to write to the authorities for a fiat for him to continue if there’s anything serious development about the case because “I am already on vacation”.