Nigeria Rugby Football Federation boils!

All is not well with the Nigeria Rugby Football Federation (NRFF) following the aborted June 13 election of the board of the Federation at the National Stadium Abuja during which all the 31 Sporting Federations in the country participated in the exercise.

Extra Time gathered that NRFF alongside 30 other sports federations were listed for elections into their respective boards on June 13, 2017 in Abuja using a guideline which was duly issued by the Ministry of Sports and the Nigeria Olympic Committee. However, there was a caveat that any Federation with an approved constitution by its stakeholders and which constitution does not suffer any illegality can be used in the place of the guidelines.

There were four Federations with a constitution submitted to the Nigeria Olympic Committee. Three out of the four decided not to use their constitution, whilst one, Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) decided to use its constitution and did its election in Kano on the 12 June, while another faction did theirs in Abuja on the same June 13 using the guidelines.

A rugby stakeholder, Ntiense Williams, revealed that as soon as rugby stakeholders assembled on the June 13 like every other Federation to conduct its election using the approved guidelines by the Ministry of Sports and the Nigeria Olympic Committee, they were prevailed upon by the NOC Secretary General Hon. Tunde Popoola who was an observer to use the NRFF constitution.

Majority of the Rugby Stakeholders objected and further informed him that there was no approved constitution, unfortunately he insisted that they must use the 2015 Constitution which was presented to him by the outgoing President Mr. Edward Pam Fom. Eventually since they couldn’t have their way, Rugby’s election was postponed to a later date to be announced by the Ministry and NOC.

On the 22nd of June, the NOC Secretary General through his office sent all Rugby stakeholders the said illegal Constitution through their emails for consideration for the rescheduled election which did not go down well with rugby stakeholders in the country.

“The outgoing President had submitted a Rugby Constitution dated 2015 to the Nigeria Olympic Committee and the Rugby World Body as an approved Nigeria Rugby Football Federation Constitution.

“However, the purported constitution was never presented to members of the outgoing board of the NRFF or the Rugby stakeholders through its General Assembly for debate, amendment or adoption for that matter, as such it is not our valid constitution,” said a board member Hon. Mustafa Allah Dey.

“We have never seen the said 2015 NRFF constitution as board members neither have we approved it either,” another board member Mr. Obum Dike stated and explaining further that this purported constitution was never presented to the board members, but was sent out to the clubs and never approved by the general assembly which was held in January 2017.

According to Ntiense Williams who was instrumental to the formation of the Rugby Federation in 1998 said: “We had an approved constitution dated 2000 which we used to do our first election at inception and this document was presented to the NOC, Ministry of Sports and our International Body by then the International Rugby Board.

“This document alongside others helped us get an accelerated admission as a full member of the world body in 2001. Thereafter the said constitution was amended with a 2006 edition which was also adopted and deposited with the NOC and World Body. Therefore the purported 2015 NRFF constitution never existed!”

Meanwhile, rugby stakeholders have called on the Honourable Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung and the Nigeria Olympic Committee President, Engr. Habu Gumel to kindly prevail on the NOC Secretary General from pushing rugby into more problems with his insistence on the use of an illegal document to conduct their election.