{"id":13166,"date":"2026-11-09T12:16:04","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T12:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/09\/toxic-politics-nff-officials-stopped-me-from-greeting-flamingos-obi-alleges\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T12:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T12:16:04","slug":"toxic-politics-nff-officials-stopped-me-from-greeting-flamingos-obi-alleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/09\/toxic-politics-nff-officials-stopped-me-from-greeting-flamingos-obi-alleges\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic Politics: NFF officials stopped me from greeting Flamingos \u2014 Obi alleges"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Toxic<\/p>\n

By Enitan Abdultawab<\/p>\n

Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has alleged that officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) prevented him from greeting members of Nigeria\u2019s Under-17 women\u2019s national football team, the Flamingos, at an airport over fears of losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

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Obi said he was informed that the officials had warned against allowing him to approach the players, threatening that they would all lose their jobs if he greeted the team.<\/p>\n

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The former Anambra State governor disclosed this in a post on X on Monday while expressing concern over what he described as the growing culture of toxic politics in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

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Obi said he arrived at the airport around 7 a.m. to board a flight to Enugu when he sighted the Flamingos, who had just arrived and were preparing to leave the airport.<\/p>\n

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He said he subsequently asked his Protocol Officer, Jackie Wayas, to find out whether he could greet and welcome the players.<\/p>\n

However, he alleged that NFF officials rejected the request and instructed that he should not approach the team.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was informed that officials of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) had refused and had requested that I not approach them because, if I did, they would all lose their jobs,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

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Obi added that the incident was not the first time he had allegedly been prevented from interacting with members of a Nigerian national team.<\/p>\n

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He recalled that on March 25, 2025, when he travelled to Uyo for a World Cup qualifying match, the state governor warmly received him at the VIP stand.<\/p>\n

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However, he alleged that after the match, when other government officials went to greet the players, he was prevented from doing the same.<\/p>\n

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According to him, the officials again claimed they would lose their jobs if he proceeded to greet the players.<\/p>\n

Expressing concern over what he described as the worsening culture of toxic politics since 2025, Obi said the situation appeared to deteriorate with each passing year.<\/p>\n

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He maintained that the Nigeria the country aspired to build should have no room for hostility, intimidation or discrimination based on political affiliation.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe new Nigeria we aspire to build must have no room for hostility, intimidation, or discrimination, regardless of political affiliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must be a Nigeria in which unity, mutual respect, and our shared humanity take precedence over political differences,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Flamingos arrived in Abuja on Monday following their 2-1 victory over Japan in the final of the FIFA U-17 Women\u2019s World Cup in Rabat, Morocco.<\/p>\n

The post Toxic Politics: NFF officials stopped me from greeting Flamingos \u2014 Obi alleges<\/a> appeared first on Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: <\/p>\n

Vanguard News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Enitan Abdultawab Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has alleged that officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) prevented him from greeting members of Nigeria\u2019s Under-17 women\u2019s national… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}