SINCE Sepp Blatter stepped into office as the Secretary General of FIFA and rose to succeed Dr. Jaoao Havelange, as President, a service spanning more than 35 years, FIFA have been turned into a mammoth monster that derives such satanic pleasure in terrorizing affiliate members concerning issues on global football.

As far as FIFA are concerned, governments in third world countries may spend 90 per cent of their sports budget on football only, and when the same governments turn to apprehend corrupt and incompetent officials, FIFA will cry interference, with threats to suspend or expel such countries from their football.

FIFA have so cowered third world officials and here in Nigeria, the NFF, during their face-off with the Nigeria Premier League, cited FIFA at every turn. I got so fed up that in one of my sports columns, I wrote that if their wives missed their monthly period, the NFF members would run to FIFA and ask: “What do we do?”

Pre during and post Super Eagles ouster from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Sani Lulu Abdulahi led NFF had so poisoned FIFA’s mind about Nigeria all in a selfish bid to retain power for the next four years. Nigeria advised NFF to postpone their election in August, but NFF said no. FIFA backed them. If the election goes ahead, Sani Lulu and his men would certainly be returned, because they had schemed everything in their favour, thanks to the FIFA Statutes they employed.

But Nigeria cannot stand another four years of Sani Lulu’s inept administration, characterized by poor results on the field of play, endless crises in national football, lack of transparency, missing money, and misapplication of funds. So what to do?

I don’t know if President Goodluck Jonathan has ever lived in Lagos, but he opted for the “Jankara” method. I doubt if you will ever find Jankara (a huge market in Lagos) in the dictionary, but it means achieving desired results through the use of every reasonably conceivable means. In response to the FIFA/NFF tomfoolery, President Jonathan released a masterstroke which caught FIFA on the hop and scattered Sani Lulu and his men to smithereens. Nigeria withdrew from all FIFA activities for two years; a palace coup surfaced within the NFF Board, Sani Lulu and his three henchmen were impeached.

FIFA were raving mad that Nigeria, one of the biggest exponents of football, were withdrawing and before they could actualize their reprisal threat, Nigeria made a dramatic u-turn, and all is well that ends well. Nigeria ended up receiving applause for having a change of heart, and also succeeding in initiating a process that will hopefully turn the administration of football around.

Naturally Nigerians are angry that our football remains comatose, but in the attempt to diagnose the causes, there should be thorough investigation and no witch-hunting. So whenever you are confronted with a similar problem, try the “Jankara” method.