Penultimate Wednesday, former Nigeria Football Federation, NFF President, Amaju Melvin Pinnick lost his FIFA Council seat after getting 28 votes to place sixth. His votes was not enough to match the likes of Fouzi Lekjaa who got 49 votes, Hani Abou Rida 35 votes,

Djibrilla Hima Hamidou 35 votes, Ahmed Yahya 29 votes and Souleiman Waberi 29 votes while Kanizat Ibrahim with 30 votes takes the only seat for the women.
Well, many people were not surprise that Amaju was ouster because they saw it coming. The only thing that shocked them was the number of votes he was able to garner. Many never believed that he would get up to that number of votes.

However, below are some of the factors responsible for his loss:
1. French Sentiment
There is no doubt that his inability to speak or communicate in French is one of the major reasons why he lost because the French speaking (Franco-phone countries) will definitely prefer and vote for their own before considering any other. And to make matter worse, most of the countries in Africa are franco-phone countries hence they have not only controlled the administration of football but also dominated the Player of the Year Award on the continent.

2. Relationship
One thing that Amaju Melvin Pinnick is known for is bad relationship he has with people. He find it difficult to relate with people. He is one person if not the first football administrator that has headed the NFF that doesn’t associate with people.

It is said in the local parlance that, “Character is like pregnancy, no matter how you hide it, it will show one day.” In the case of Amaju, he doesn’t hide his own; he displays his arrogance and snub people at will. He took the same attitude to CAF/FIFA and the result is what the country is suffering today.

It is said that his friends are also complaining about his attitude towards them. As NFF President, he had issues with players to the extent that they publicly snubbed him too. As a person, you must flow with friends so that difficult times like this, they could rally round you not a time when people should be celebrating your downfall.

Pride
Some people argued that Amaju is pompous. Of course, somebody that is full of him or herself can never take advice from anybody. Such person will underrate people and trash their suggestions. Who knows maybe, somebody would have given him advice on how to go about the election but because people know that he would not take it, they decided to keep to themselves.

3. Accusation of Impact not felt
Some also claimed that Amaju’s impact was not felt as CAF and FIFA member. On several occasions, when the country’s football needs intervention, they said he was never on ground to speak let alone find solution to it. Not forgetting in a hurry, the maltreatment meted on the Super Eagles by the Libyan Football Federation when they were abandoned at the airport for hours.

Apart from that, they claimed that there were no impacts in country’s football. Till he was ousted, Nigerian referees are still operating analog way of refereeing while other countries in Africa are fasting adopting the latest technology.

4. Concentration on Entertainment
Investigation has shown that Amaju is very good in entertainment. He introduced a comedy/entertainment outfit recently where almost all the comedians and musicians especially from Warri and Delta at large gather to entertain people. He spent huge sum of money to not only build an event centre but also to bring all the star entertainers together.

Though arguable but there is no place where Amaju sponsor a football competition or any other sport event in his name anywhere or even donate sporting equipment or football to a team or clubside. However, we heard that his last contribution to a football club was when he was chairman of Warri Wolves, where he left the club for NFF job. The players were owed for several months which contributed to the relegation to the second-tier of the league and they still remain there till date.

Some people also claimed that even though Amaju is very good in entertainment but his skill was also not felt at both CAF and FIFA, and that could be the reasons why he was not returned.

5. Politics back home
There is no doubt that some people back in Nigeria are also eyeing the position of Pinnick. It has become a norm that once you are out of the NFF, you should start packing your luggages to leave the scene. This is not accusing anybody of responsible for Amaju’s ouster because the seating would have stopped him from contesting for the FIFA seat when he assumed office. Funny enough, some people outside the NFF secretariat were also eyeing the position and could have their ways if they know how to play the politics.

Apart from the factors responsible for his ouster, it has been discovered that unlike other members who are helping their citizens into CAF and FIFA, Amaju cannot boast of anybody that he helped. People like Amos Adamu, Bola Ojo-Oba, just to mention a few helped many people (names withheld) into CAF and FIFA.

Even as NFF President, Amaju was just busy telling everybody that the national team would play scientific football but instead, they played style-less football under him while Super Eagles was busy doing fashion show while others were playing football in Russia.

Although, the NFF enjoyed so many sponsorships but they have all disappeared and are not interested in doing business with the football house anymore but they didn’t get value for their money especially their inability to qualify for the world cup because of interferences in selection of coaches and players.

Also as NFF President, the only time they did training for coaches, they were made to pay through their noses and to make matter worse, many of the coaches who managed to pay were left jobless while jobs were given to foreigners and old horses.

Amaju as NFF President does not have regards for the Nigerian media but only good at using press releases. Amaju on several occasions snubbed and embarrassed journalists under his tenure hence no one could have done any reasonable story on him because they don’t have details about his activities let alone relationship.

Some school of thoughts argued that it is better not to have any Nigerian than to continue to have somebody like Amaju Pinnick as a representative whose impact is not felt and doesn’t even relate with people let alone brief the media on what he has achieved or is working towards. The way things start now, the question on the lips of Nigerians is, could this be the end of Amaju’s football administration career especially when one considers the number of persons eyeing the position including those back home or will he bounce back? Only time will tell.