The long-standing rivalry and power tussle between Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Amaju Pinnick, and owner of Giwa FC, Chris Giwa, seems to be deepening with each passing day.
Giwa leads a faction that claims to be the rightful administration at the Glass House in opposition to the Pinnick-led board.
Despite losing his appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the Jos-born administrator decided to proceed to a Federal High Court and claimed to have gotten a favourable judgement.
And Pinnick, who is in the second year of his four-year tenure, on Tuesday, issued fresh threats to his rival, claiming he “won’t give up” because “I’m a Warri boy -we fight to the end”.
The 43-year-old insists he won’t be deterred by the antics of the opposition to cripple and “truncate” his administration.
“We abide by the rule of law and the statutes. Nigeria had a choice to join FIFA or not. So we must abide by their ethics,” Pinnick told CompleteSports.
“You (Chris Giwa) went to CAS and lost a case and came back again to a court in Jos and of course you claimed you got judgment.
“We have absolute regard for the Nigerian Law. In fact, Subsection 1.1 of the NFF statutes states that the Nigerian Law is supreme.”
The Delta-born administrator went further to compare the current crisis at the Glass House to that of the Nigeria Labour Congress who were stopped by the Industrial Court from an impending strike action rather than the regular court.
His words: “During the Labour crisis last month, The Nigerian Federal Government in its wisdom did not go to a regular court to stop Labour, but went to an Industrial Court because they are affiliation to the International Labour Organisation to stop Labour.
“If you lose an election case, it could take years, but if you go to the tribunal you are protected with all the acts.
“It was a deliberate effort to truncate our effort at the Federation. Clearly, they are enjoying the anarchy and it’s slowing a lot of things.”
