NFF Executive Committee Won’t Dissolve Unless All 19 Members Resign

Talk of a mass resignation that could automatically dissolve the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Executive Committee is not supported by the federation’s amended statutes, which provide a mechanism for replacing vacant positions even when a majority of the leadership leaves office.

Article 38 of the NFF Statutes, as amended in March 2026, states that where a position or up to 50 per cent of the Executive Committee positions becomes vacant, the Executive Committee shall fill the affected positions until the next Congress, when replacements will be elected for the remainder of the tenure.

The statutes also specifically provide for a situation in which more than 50 per cent of the Executive Committee positions become vacant.

In that circumstance, the General Secretary is required to convene an Extraordinary Congress within the prescribed period, while the remaining members of the Council take care of the daily affairs of the NFF until new elections are held.

With the NFF Executive Committee comprising 19 members, this means that even if 17 or 18 members resign, the statutes do not provide for an automatic dissolution of the Executive Committee.

Instead, the provisions point to an Extraordinary Congress and a replacement election, with the remaining member or members maintaining the federation’s daily affairs in the interim.

The situation would be fundamentally different if all 19 Executive Committee members resigned.

In that scenario, there would be no remaining Executive Committee member to take care of the federation’s daily affairs under the mechanism outlined in Article 38, creating a situation that the provision does not expressly address.

Article 38 further identifies death, resignation or permanent inability to perform official functions as circumstances that render an Executive Committee position vacant.

The provision therefore makes a clear distinction between mass resignation and automatic dissolution.

A resignation by 17 or 18 members would create extensive vacancies and trigger the statutory replacement process, but it would not, by itself, dissolve the NFF Executive Committee.

Only a complete resignation of all 19 members would leave the Executive Committee with no remaining member, creating a constitutional situation that would have to be addressed beyond the ordinary replacement mechanism contained in Article 38.