Chairman of the Delta State Sports Commission, Pinnick Amaju was yesterday in Warri, Delta State elected as the president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in a keenly contested election.
In the run-off election Amaju who polled 25 votes in the first ballot recorded 32 votes to emerge the winner ahead of Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi and Dominic Iorfa scored four and eight votes respectively.
In the first ballot, Chief Ogunjobi had scored nine votes while Dominic Iorfa recorded six votes.
Chief Amanze Uchegbulam had recorded four votes while both Abba Yola and Chief Mike Umeh recorded no votes. This paved the way for the three top contestants to go into the run-off.
The chairman of the electoral committee, Samson Ebonhe had explained that the Electoral Guideline stipulated that for a presidential candidate to be declared as winner he must score at least two third of the total votes cast. He said that a winner in the first ballot must at least score 29 votes out of the 44 delegates.
The new NFF President, Melvin Pinnick Amaju, in his speech promised to reach out to all aggrieved football stakeholders and bring them under one umbrella for the betterment of Nigerian football.
“I’ll go and beg Chris Giwa, Dominic Iorfa, Taiwo OgunJobI, Amanze Uchegbulam, Abba Yola. We can only move forward when there is unity.
My election is a divine one. I never bargained to be President. They wanted to make me Chairman of the Electoral body. Today, I thank all Nigerians and dedicate this victory to late Patrick Okpomo who tutored me. He wanted to be President of the Nigerian Football but never got it. Now, I’ve it and will give it my best”, he said shedding tears of joy.