Alleged Corruption: Pinnick Drags Obono-Obla, SPIP To Court

The last might not have been heard of the alleged corruption against Amaju Pinnick, President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), as the CAF vice president, through the NFF lawyer, Mamman Nasir, has dragged Okoi Obono-Obla, the head of Special Presidential Investigatory Panel (SPIP) on the recovery of public property, and the entire panel, to court.

This is according to a letter from Nasir obtained by Breaking Times. The football house, through its lawyer, lamented what it called the orchestrated media campaign against NFF officials.

Consequently, the NFF, through the lawyer, warned against persecution and public show trial of its officials by SPIP.

“It must be pointed out that while these publications of the news of the warrant of arrest started on Wednesday, January 9, the date on the face of the eventual published warrant unlawfully obtained from a magistrate’s court in Abuja was Thursday, January 10”, the statement stated.

The counsel to the NFF questioned why a warrant of arrest will be obtained from a Magistrate Court instead of a High Court as prescribed by the law setting up the SPIP.

“More grievous to the rights of our client and its officials is the fact that Chief Obono-Obla and SPIP went to secure a warrant of arrest from a Magistrate Court contrary to the clear provisions of the Recovery of Public Property (Special Provisions) Act, the law setting up the SPIP, that ONLY the Federal High Court is vested with the jurisdiction to issue warrants for the SPIP.

He, however, stated that he has filed a suit against the SPIP in the FCT High Court, Abuja. ”Our client and the affected NFF officials have also taken the additional step to file a suit, FC/ABJ/ CS/17/2019 at the Federal High Court, Abuja Division.

“The suit is to allow this whole sordid matter to be ventilated in the court of the land and to check the oppression of our client and its officials