The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung, has told the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) that President Muhammadu Buhari could not have given him an alleged directive on the ongoing Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) matter through him.
Malami had purportedly written a letter on July 20th, 2018 tagged: “A plea for caution in implementing one-sided court orders concerning the NFF and the need to respect FIFA’s position on the orders” to Dalung, claiming to have received the alleged directive from the President.
Consequently, the minister in his reply to the Attorney General drew his attention to the fact that the President communicates with him directly and have no reason whatsoever sending an alleged directive to him on a subject that is under his purview through him.
Dalung reminded the AGF further that the “President is a strong advocate and an uncompromisingly adherent to the rule of law and would therefore not issue such alleged directive that would clearly be at variance with his well know position.”
Dalung also stressed that the advice from the AGF to both parties “to maintain status quo ante, is also a fragrant contradiction to his last two letters to him on the matter.”
You may want to recall that the Attorney General had on two occasions written to the Minister of Youth and Sports advising him to enforce the orders of the Federal High Court, Jos that was later upheld by the Supreme Court.
Dalung concluded in his letter to the AGF by advising him thus, “As the number one law officer in the country, it behooves you to provide unequivocal guidance whenever there is any perceived confusion on matters bothering on the rule of law.”
Guardian
