The electoral committee for the August 26 general election into the Executive Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), yesterday commenced a secret screening of the candidates in line with the electoral guideline, which set Monday as the official deadline for collection and submission of forms.
The committee, which abandoned it’s office in the zone one area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and relocated to a secret hotel at zone seven, operated under the protection of heavily armed officials of the Department of State Security (DSS).
Daily Sunsports correspondent, who visited the hotel, could confirm that the committee members that occupied the second floor of the hotel waited until the evening of yesterday for the Glass House staff that sorted out the nomination forms to get delivery of them before commencing the screening.
Sources close to the committee told Daily Sunsports in confidence that the committee was tinkering with the option of not inviting the candidates to physically appear before them to defend themselves unless certain information required their attention.
“Following the official end of the deadline for sale and submission of the forms on Monday, the electoral committee has commenced the screening of the candidates. As at yesterday afternoon, the committee was only waiting to take delivery of the nomination forms from the NFF ad hoc staff sorting them out.
“From all indications, the committee may not invite any of the candidates to make a physical appearance unless there is any information requiring his or her attention. As you can see, they have made adequate security arrangements to forestall any form of security breach. The committee doesn’t want to take chances,” our source noted.
Meanwhile, there was a strong doubt over the possibility of extending the deadline for the sale and return of the nomination forms despite the envisaged intervention of the Chief Mike Umeh-led NFF executive Committee.
The NFF board is meeting today with the electoral process one of the issues it would look into.
Umeh had in a statement yesterday said the board will wade in and ensure that aggrieved stakeholders are pacified.
However, if the position of the chairman of the electoral committee, Mr. Amoni Biambo, was anything to go by, the hope of extending the deadline looks impossible.
Meanwhile, erstwhile strongman of the Alhaji Aminu Maigari-led board, Barrister Chris Green, might be the first casualty of the deadline order, as competent sources disclosed yesterday that despite his interest in returning to the new board, he was unable to obtain the form.

Electoral committee begins secret screening