The Nigeria Football Federation has warned against persecution and public show trial of its officials by the Special Presidential Investigatory Panel (SPIP) on the recovery of public property, headed by Okoi Obona-Obla.<\/p>\n
The NFF through its lawyers, Mamman Nasir in a statement made available to\u00a0Breaking Times<\/strong><\/em>bemoaned the \u201corchestrated media campaign\u201d against it officials and the use of an \u201conline media mob\u201d to promote the pre-determined media reportage of the activities of Chief Obon-Obla and SPIP.It must be pointed out that while these publications of the news of the warrant of arreststarted on Wednesday 9th January 2019, the date on the face of the eventual\u00a0 published warrant unlawfully obtained from a magistrate\u2019s court in Abuja is Thursday 10th January 2019.<\/p>\n The obvious conclusion here is that some interested persons have an unrestrained and direct access to Chief Obono-Obla, and have thus secured a front row seat that allows them a pre-knowledge of all steps to be taken by Chief Obono-Obla and or SPIP, which they gleefully publish ahead of these steps.\u201dThe statement added.<\/p>\n The council to the NFF questioned why a warrant of arrest will be obtained from a magistrate court instead of a High court as prescribed by the law setting up the SPIP.<\/p>\n \u201cMore grievous to the rights of our client and its officials is the fact that Chief Obono-Obla Barrister\u00a0 Nasir however stated,that he has filed a suit against the presidential panel in the FCT high court Abuja.\u201dOur client and the affected NFF officials have also taken the additional step to file a suit, The Nigeria Football Federation has warned against persecution and public show trial of its officials by the Special Presidential Investigatory Panel (SPIP) on the recovery of public property, headed by Okoi Obona-Obla. The NFF through its lawyers, Mamman Nasir in a statement made available to\u00a0Breaking Timesbemoaned the \u201corchestrated media campaign\u201d against it officials and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":1709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[121,122],"class_list":["post-2392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-nigerian-football","tag-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nand SPIP went to secure a warrant of arrest from a magistrate court contrary to the clear
\nprovisions of the Recovery of Public Property (Special Provisions) Act, the law setting up the
\nSPIP, that ONLY the Federal High Court is vested with the jurisdiction to issue warrants for
\nthe SPIP. It can only be concluded that this deviation was purposely to achieve the aim of
\navoiding the protection afforded everyone, including the affected NFF officials, under the
\nsame law that set up SPIP, which requires the SPIP to present a prima facie case to a judge
\nof the Federal High Court to justify its case before a warrant of arrest may be issued under
\nthe hand of the judge\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nFC\/ABJ\/CS\/17\/2019 at the Federal High Court, Abuja Division (The only court statutory
\nconferred with jurisdiction over SPIP matters under the enabling act). The suit is to allow
\nthis whole sordid matter to be ventilated in the Court of the land and to check the
\noppression of our client and its officials.\u201d<\/p>\n