Some members of staff of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) are not satisfied with Ibrahim Gusau’s recent defence of the $10,000 monthly salary being paid to the General Secretary of the federation, Mohammed Sanusi.
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They have berated Gusau for his alleged insensitivity to the plight of other staff of the NFF and members of some of the national teams, accusing the secretariate of either shortchanging them or not paying them at all.
One angry staff, who spoke to journalists in Abuja, claimed that at the NFF secretariat as at date, staff salary is in arrears. There were mixed reactions from Nigerians after it was revealed that the NFF Secretary, Sanusi, earns his monthly salary in US dollars contrary to Nigerian law that clearly stipulates naira as the only legal means of exchange or payment of emoluments.
Some NFF staffers at the football house wondered at the level of mediocrity exhibited by the federation’s president in his reply to earlier reports while defending Sanusi’s monthly salary in US dollars.
The angry staff claimed that Sanusi was or still is a Federal civil servant, who was seconded from the sports ministry to the NFF.
“Either way, the law is very clear. No public official or staff of the NFF that enjoys statutory government allocation can pay any staff in foreign currency.
“It is wrong of Gusau to justify payment of $10,000 which, if converted to naira, is N8 million per month. Is Sanusi an expatriate staff?” the NFF staff queried.
Gusau had earlier defended his very recent appointments of board members for all the football league bodies in Nigeria, saying that he derived his powers from the NFF Statute.
Gusau said: “Having read through the NFF statute, there is no place where it states categorically the procedure, qualifications and how the boards of the Leagues must be constituted. Nowhere! And the same statute, in Article 85, gives the executive committee the power to have a final decision on any matter not provided for in the same statutes or in case of force majeure.
“This was the provision that gave the board the power to appoint the recently constituted boards of the various leagues. So, the board has not flouted any law in setting up the various league boards that has made George Aluo chairman of the Nigeria National League (NNL), Silas Agara, chairman of the Nigeria Nationwide League and Nkechi Obi, the boss of the Nigeria Women Football League,” Gusau had stated.
