By Salifu Usman, Abuja
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has detached Sunday Dankaro’s signage from their new N337m secretariat, seven months after relocation.
The two-storey building, commissioned seven years ago and named after the former chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) as Sunday Dankaro House, is now carrying the NFF signage.
The edifice, located within the package B of Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, was built by an indigenous company, Messers Paul-B Nigeria Plc with the surplus of N350million declared by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Super Eagles for 2010 World Cup campaign.
The building was named after Sunday Dankaro, late business mogul and sports administrator, who was the chairman of the Nigerian Football Association (NFA) from 1974-1980, when Nigeria captured its first Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title, which earned many Nigerian footballers’ cars, houses and awards.
An insider, who confided to LEADERSHIP Sports yesterday, said the hierarchy of the NFF jettisoned the old name (Sunday Dankaro House) to settle for new name (NFF Secretariat) for easy identification.
Going by the growing profile of Nigeria in global football, the need to give the Nigeria Football Federation a befitting secretariat informed the decision by the Presidential Task Force on Super Eagles to build for the NFF a new secretariat in Abuja after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
With the support of government, the PTF which was headed by former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi mobilised funds from philanthropic individuals and corporate bodies to support the Super Eagles to qualify for the first ever on African soil.
At the end of the World Cup campaign in South Africa, the task force declared a surplus of N350million which it immediately channeled into what is now the new NFF secretariat.
