By; AYO OJEDOKUN Lagos
The Executive Committee members of Bauchi State Football Association has passed a vote of no confidence on the Chairman of the association, Patrick Pascal even as they announced his removal from office and appointed the 1st Vice Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Umar Madachi as acting chairman pending when election will be held.
According to a letter sent to the Secretary General of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and signed by four out of the five Executive Committee members namely; Adamu Umar Madachi Vice Chairman, Usman Abbas Shehu, Kabiru Yusuf and Abdulazeez Yusuf, they accused him of flagrant abuse of office which violates Article 17(1), Article 3 (1-2), Article 20(5) and Article 3(1-3) of the statutes of Bauchi State Football Association noting that they’re not aware of any formation or election of Local Football council across the 20 Local Government Areas of the State which he purportedly organised without the consent or approval of the committee as enshrined in the statutes of the FA.
According to them Article 31(1-2) stated that a General Assembly of the FA shall be held every year with members of the Executive Committee informed in writing at least seven days before the meeting but in disregard of this statutes, the chairman unilaterally and in violation of the said article convened a congress and constituted an illegal electoral committee without the consent of the state Executive Committee members which made the congress and the electoral committee null and void.
They further explained that Article 20(5) states that the State FA shall be composed of 9 persons; three from each of the Senatorial zones made up as follows Chairman, Vice Chairman and seven ordinary members who will all be elected by the Annual General Congress but in the case of Bauchi State, they have only five members and all efforts to fill the vacant positions proved abortive as the Chairman refused to call for bye election which contravenes the Article.
On the Goal Project building which is supposed to be under the control of the FA, they accused the chairman of turning it into his personal Guest House where fees are paid by guests in a short or full time basis without the consent of the Executive Committee members.
The Committee members further explained that a competition is always organised in the state by the chairman and the Secretariat staff without re- course to the state Executive citing a case in point as that of Professor Sulaiman Bogoro Unity Cup which he later changed the sponsorship to one Naval Officer but unfortunately, members of the Executive Committee were not aware of the nature of the sponsorship but later discovered that the chairman used the state FA funds to sponsor the competition and renamed it Bauchi State Football Association Unity Cup without the approval of the Executive Committee members.
The members while also accusing Patrick Pascal of not deeming it fit to call for any Executive Committee meeting since election in June 2019 neither did he set up any single standing committee to run the affairs of the state FA demanded a full account of the COVID-19 Palliatives grant sent to the State FA by the NFF.
