By Chimezie Anaso
Awka – Jude Anyadufu, Chairman of the 2020 Anambra State Football Association (AnSFA) Elections Committee, has assured that the exercise would be conducted in line with best practices.
Anyadufu had held a meeting on Friday with all aspirants and delegates to the AnSFA board and Local Football Committee (LFC) elections.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Awka that he was assuring that the elections would be conducted according to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Statutes.
NAN reports that the Board and LFC elections will hold on Monday and Tuesday respectively at the Bishop Obiefuna Retreat Centre in Awka.
“The activities of the committee have been so open and according to the rules, so much that all the aspirants have expressed confidence in our team.
“Of course, there are those who wished to have the elections go their way and have attempted to oppose the process,’’ Anyadufu said.
He said the football-loving people in Anambra had been so much worried about the administration of the sport in the state and were ready to effect a change.
The Elections Committee chairman however said it was the duty of Anambra people to set the tone for football’s revival in the state.
He pointed out that this could be done by ensuring that the process leading to the election of leaders was all-inclusive.
“As a committee we have taken a lot of criticism. People have gone to Abuja to ask that this electoral process should be canceled, and to ask for the constitution of a caretaker committee.
“This was just all because they felt we are too strict with what they saw at the screening.
“Let me restate that, in this election, we (members of the elections committee) have no personal or individual interest. I don’t know most of the aspirants and we don’t need to know them.
“We are only here to conduct a free, fair and acceptable election for Anambra FA and Local Football Committee.
“A disqualified candidate even called me to tell me that this was the first time something that looked like screening took place in Anambra. That in the past, all they did was go to a hotel and come out with lists and later elected people.
“We are all from Anambra, and we must get it right because most of us are not happy with the way grassroots football is being managed in this state.
“So, only the best as adjudged by the greater number will emerge,” Anyadufu said.
He said a total of 26 delegates would participate in the election of the nine-member board.
These are chairmen of the 21 LFCs, representatives of Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL), Nigeria National League (NNL) and Nationwide League One (NLO) clubs, and representatives of Referees Association, Players Union and Coaches Association.
They will go on to vote on Monday, while on Tuesday the election of board members of 18 of the 21 LFCs would be affirmed.
The election of those of Awka South and Onitsha South LFCs, where there are more than three aspirants, would be conducted.
A bye-election for the Orumba South LFC would be held on a later day as their candidates were disqualified for late submission of forms.
Meanwhile, Philip Udala, the Chairman of Udala FC of Uke, who is one of the 13 cleared candidates for the FA board election, has withdrawn from the contest.
He said he was now supporting his friend, Emeka Okeke, who is Chairman of Aspire FC and is from the same Anambra Central with him.
(NAN)