Embattled president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Aminu Maigari, has revealed that he was ready to sacrifice his personal ambition not to re-contest for the presidency of the federation with a view to allowing peace to reign in the football family.
Fielding questions from journalists on arrival in his office at the Glass House in line with the directive from the world soccer governing body, FIFA, the Bauchi State-born football administrator also denied the rumours making the rounds that he had already anointed a candidate for election.
Asked if he would sacrifice his personal ambition not to re-contest to restore peace to the Nigerian football, he said: “I agree that I am ready to sacrifice my personal ambition for peace to return to the football family. You know that I am a very peaceful person and I have made my intention not to re-contest known for peace to flow in the family,” he stressed.
“As a leader, it will be too bad to continue to fuel the crisis with my personal ambition. It shows that I am not fair to the country and my family. I removed my hand and sacrifice my interest for peace to reign.
“I want to put all that aside to earn the support of Nigerians that applauded my achievements. You have a very good record, which some said it is hard to break but we want it broken because we want to see the Nigerian football move forward.
“I want to give chance to the young ones who probably know better than I do to take the game to the next level. All I want to do is keep supporting whoever comes and takes over from me. Let me also make it clear that I am not anointing any candidate,” he said.
Maigari, who denied seeing any letter from CAS also admitted that he felt very bad about the crisis, insisting that the way forward was to obey the statute.
“I feel so bad about the crisis because the football family does not deserve this crisis. We need a more united family everyday, but in a situation like this, you cannot do without crisis even if the family is more united than the way we are.
“On the way forward, we must do what FIFA wants us to do. The NFF has statute which must be respected as a rule governing the federation. We must also obey FIFA which has the supreme statute so long as we are affiliated to it,” he noted.
On who is disobeying the statutes, Maigari argued: “The media should be the best judge of who is not following the statute. They said that it is an internal dispute which requires inviting the two parties, but my question is where the two parties called to dialogue and find solution to this crisis, my answer is no.
“Therefore, FIFA must definitely and have to intervene because as I said, they are the owner of the game and the supreme body. Only FIFA has the right to pronounce ban on any country.
“It is just the same thing with the football federation that can equally pronounce ban at our own level. We have to thank God that the Nigerian football family has been behaving very well. As for  a letter from CAS, I want to honestly say that I have not seen any letter from CAS,” he noted.

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