A group of informed Nigerians sports enthusiasts named Coalition for Equity and Fairness in Sport has written a letter of protest to President Muhammadu Buhari over “Continued disobedience of Court Orders and the implications for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): The case of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). Dated May 31, the letter was signed by Oluyemi Ayagboye, the Assistant Secretary-General. The letter is reproduced verbatim.
“One critical strategy by your administration to broaden the nation’s economic base and end the sordid spectacle of our dependence on oil and a GDP solely driven by oil earning is the deliberate effort to enhance the ease of doing business in Nigeria so as to encourage the inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) into our country.
In actual fact Mr. President, the Chinese economic strides have as the fulcrum the massive DFI China was able to attract in the early 80s and which the nation has sustained till date.
When we understudy big player economies of the world and ascertain how they won, it is apparent, Mr. President, that Nigeria has no option other than fulfilling all righteousness if it must be competitive considering the fact that all economies in the world are in competition.
Rule of Law and ease of doing business: While ease of doing business is quite critical to attracting FDI, permit us, Your Excellency, to emphasise that Rule of Law is the single most important component of ease of doing business in any country. This is because all aspects of business transactions, Your Excellency, are a function of the law including consequent adjudication if and when disputes surface. No foreign investors will be willing to invest or do business in a country where decisions of the judiciary, the arbiter all parties in business look up to, are constantly disregarded and rendered patently worthless as it now obtains in Nigeria.
The unabating tendency, Mr. President, has continued to send wrong signals to the international community which in fact endorses and commends your determined war against corruption but nonetheless disturbed by the nation’s incapacity to get institutions drive democracy and national life, including business. This explains the nation’s poor rating by the Transparency International and Amnesty International that have continued to pitch us against the rest world which questions our claim to best democratic practices.
The nation, we must warn, has to avert being listed among despotic countries which operate behind evil curtains where lives and investments are unsafe, a situation that can discourage all investments whether home or foreign.
Supreme Court and Nigeria Football Federation (NFF): Of particular attention at this point in time Mr. President, is the case of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) where the nation’s apex court, the Supreme Court, has in a unanimous decision led by no less the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) on the 27th April, 2018 ordered the resort and uphold of a Federal High Court, Jos judgment which annulled the 30th September, 2014 election of Mr. Amaju Pinnick on the ground that it was held against a subsisting court injunction issued on 19th September, 2014, by a competent court.
The Supreme Court in that decision set aside the ruling of an Appeal Court which had set aside the Federal High Court ruling, describing it as a miscarriage of justice, while it did not fail to reprimand the judges.
Why did the Executive not carry out court Order? It is clear from the above Your Excellency that nothing ought to have stopped the Executive arm of Government from executing the competent judgment of the Supreme Court by immediately withdrawing the recognition of the Pinnick-led Executive Committee and ensure prompt return of the Chris Giwa Exco forthwith. That, Your Excellency, is Rule of Law!
The purported agreement to keep the illegal Pinnick administration in the Football House, in spite of a court judgment which sacked it on the pretext not to jeopardise preparation for the World Cup is defective; just as it clearly casts aspersion on the discretion of our judges.
While we are not inclined to blame the Nigeria Judicial Council (NJC) and the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), we are nonetheless persuaded to decry the lackadaisical folding of arms by the two bodies when the sacredness of the judiciary is desecrated with the widespread discountenance of court orders in the country; a heinous development that is capable of bringing our judiciary to disrepute in the World Court and the overall global community of jurists.
The nation has seen the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) for instance severally rising to the occasion whenever the integrity of the medical profession is toiled with. It is however not too late for the NJC/NBA to demand full compliance with court orders in the country.
The nation should not allow itself to be deceived that FIFA and its affiliates across the world, among which is the NFF, are not compelled by decisions of ordinary courts of the land or that the nation risks being sanctioned by the world’s apex football body. These are hoaxes that have been denied by many instances of judicial decisions across the world that have compelled FIFA and its affiliates in many countries.
Immediate implementation of the court decision: The “I am the Lord unto myself”syndrome in the country, Mr. President, should be discouraged; just as we enjoined your highly esteemed Office to order the immediate implementation of the court decision which annulled the Pinnick presidency of the NFF and get the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to secure the Football House for the use of the legally recognised president of the Federation.”