How Former Sports Minister Blackmailed Maigari To Impeach Me - Baribote

How Former Sports Minister Blackmailed Maigari To Impeach Me - Baribote

By Niyi Busari

Former Chairman Nigeria Premier League, Chief Victor Rumson Baribote, has argued that the impeachment process used to impeach him as the league body head was illegal.

Rumson Baribote was duly-elected Chairman of the Nigeria Premier League in 2011, at an election organized by the NPL Electoral Committee and supervised by the Nigeria Football Federation but was unceremoniously kicked out in 2013.

Reacting to questions on one of Nigeria's top sports platforms, Family United by Football (FUBF) on Sunday evening, the legal luminary pointed fingers at former Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullah for his impeachment.

"The process of my impeachment is illegal. The NFF statues is very clear and FIFA has said it clearly that whatever decision any Federation takes can't come from outside the FIFA rules," he told FUBF.

"You cannot go outside the law of Nigeria to operate. Most times we swim in ignorance and illegalities.

"Some of those people that were used to impeach me illegally don't even know who Rumson Baribote is, they only worked against me just to satisfy their paymasters.

"I wasn't given a fair hearing, because if you are impeaching someone, you have to put those allegations leveled against him aside for him to respond to, but I wasn't given any opportunity to do that, because some group of people just gathered themselves in the middle of the night to do illegally impeach.

"Bolaji Abdullah who claim to love football more than all of us, was the one who sponsored my impeachment in the middle of the night. He wanted to bring in IMG to take over the league and thought I wouldn't allow that to happen.

"So he blackmailed the NFF President then, Aminu Maigari in removing me, alongside the likes of Mike Idoko and that was what brought about the LMC.

"The same Bolaji Abdullah that claimed to be the messiah of Nigerian Football is no where to be found today, but we are still around the football cycle trying to ensure things are done the right way.

"As far as I am concerned, I was never impeached and sometimes you just have to allow God to fight for you."