Reps committee re-invites NFF president over Super Falcons allowance

The House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the face-off between Super Falcons and the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) on Wednesday re-invited the federation’s president, Ibrahim Gusau, over the non-payment of the players’ allowance.

The team had threatened to boycott the just concluded Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand over non-payment of camp allowance by the NFF.

The Super Falcons later travelled to Oceania for the tournament following the lawmakers’ intervention.

Nigeria crashed out of the tournament in the round of 16 following a nail-biting 2-4 loss to eventual runners up England on a penalty shootout.

The chairman of the committee, Blessing Onu, re-invited Gusau after he failed to appear on Tuesday.

She said the hearing was not to witch hunt anyone but to discharge its functions in line with the mandate of the House.

The lawmaker expressed disappointment at the NFF president’s refusal to honour the committee’s invitation.

Onu said: “The NFF president was supposed to appear before the ad hoc committee on August 17, the reasons he gave were not as important as the work of this ad hoc committee.

“Nigerians are interested, Nigerians are watching. The girls did extremely well and they made Nigerians proud, so we shouldn’t take this investigative hearing likely.

“We gave an opportunity for the president of NFF to appear before this Ad hoc committee, I will say invariably he is the one summoning us.

“He came up with an excuse that it is not as important as what we have. The allowances and the dues that were supposed to be paid to the female footballers, the Super Falcons and he turned it down,

“What is more important is for him to attend the FIFA Women Convention or to appear before this committee.

“And even at that he has the effrontery to send his SA that he won’t be able to make it. It simply means he is taking us for granted, he is taking us for a ride and we will not tolerate it.”

In his earlier remark, the NFF Secretary General, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi said the NFF president did not attend the investigative hearing because of ill-health.

The committee, however, walked out the secretary-general and his team who came to represent the NFF president.

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