From Yakubu Busari, Jos
The Chairman of Plateau chapter of the Nigeria Football Federation, FF, has said the recently concluded election that brought in the new exco was free and fair and urged those he referred to as “ desperate blackmailers”, to stop calling for fresh conduct of election.
Longbap in an interview with our correspondent in Jos North Local Government Council on Thursday, said those condemning his stewardship for lack of performance are mere distractors trying to truncate his leadership of the exco which has “done credibly well in promoting the football association to achieve a lot of success.”
Longbap was reacting to a media campaign allegedly sponsored media director of Plateau United Club, Albert Dakum, to the effect that the inability of his leadership to win laurels showed how ineffective it was.
Longbap explained that he was able to win two trophies in reaction to Mr Albert Dakum so-called claims.
According to him, Dakum held a position before the last election and to be calling for dissolution of the current Exco in the state, was bad, stressing that incidentally PFA conducted her annual extra ordinary meeting /election in June, 2019 in Miango, Bassa LGA freely and fairly.
He said the election was observe by the state government’ permanent secretary in the youth and sports ministry as well as the representative of NFA .
Sunday Longbap pointed out that “there were six states Football association Chairmen who are also in attendance including ,Kogi,Niger,Kaduna, Nasarawa and Bauchi and the Chairman of Bassa Local government.
He maintained that apart from all members including media representative of various sports writers ,security personnel were on ground led by the DPO of Bassa .
As further evidence, he disclosed that NFF and all members in attendance led a high power delegation to the palace of Baraa in Irigwe to solicit for royal blessing so the issue of delegates for the extra ordinary meeting and election out of which “the 23 delegates we had 22 delegates with exception of Plateau United’s club who were absent for reasons best known to them
Longbap reiterated that if all delegates were present except one during the conduct of election why should someone who stood against the peaceful exercise now calling for fresh election to be conducted for the Exco he is presently the chairman? .
Speaking on his performance in office, Sunday said . “I don’t want to blow my own trumpet ,the Plateau United’s has won the league twice in the history of football in the state under my stewardship .
“The Mighty Jest got promotion from amateur to professional league, we have the like of Vom Vet FC, Feeder FC , Solid FC just to mention a few they were also promoted respectively based on their various league during my leadership”.
“We were able to gain promotion to local government teams that are now at the national league, including Langtang United’s ,Barkin Ladi ,Ganawuri United in Riyom LGA and the recent one is Maichibe in Pankshin which gain promotion into league”, he added .
On the aspect of human development in sports development, he said for the first time a citizen of Plateau state, Bitrus Bewarang was appointed a director of technical coach by the NFA, adding, “we also benefited from NFF backroom staff with the appointment of Labaran Danladi who is now creator with the national team the Super Eagles including Darlington”
Sunday revealed that under his stewardship, the state increase more members of match commissioners from the former seven to 47 both now at premier ,national and amateur under the referees categories ,world referees and some were promoted to premier ,national leagues and with a lot of them are in great ” one” and of recent one of them got promoted to FIFA ,CAF .
“We were among the first states to facilitate the promotion of local government teams for overseas training. Examples are Pankshin , Bassa to Dubai ,Jos North to Brazil , Mangu to Togo and Jos East to Kenya. We are presently on championship tour of governor cup 2019 and 2020 before the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic.
He emphasized that women team is another area of major breakthrough where the Tin City Queen participated in the last three Aitio federation cup for the past three years , 2017, 2018, 2019-2020 respectively.
“We also organize annual under 13,15 for over 9 years without stopping and we facilitate over 50 players that traveled for their professional career outside Nigeria.”
