The President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick has said he will not resign his position following the Super Eagles’ failure to qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals.
The Super Eagles who needed four points from their double header against Egypt, drew 1-1 in Kaduna before falling to the Egyptians 0-1 in the second leg on Tuesday to drop out of the qualifying race.
However, Pinnick who was speaking at a Press Conference at the Glass House on Wednesday, said his board could still achieve great things despite its failure to earn the ticket for the Super Eagles to the football fiesta next year.
"When you are in a battle field, if you retreat, whoever comes in will have to start from where you started and he might run into the same [problem].
"When you say resign, I see it that you are telling me to wake up from slumber and see things that I was not seeing.
"I was elected by the Nigerian football congress and I have a mandate for four years and I don’t thinks we have done badly.
"People should understand when you say ‘resignation’. When was the last time England won any championship? It was 1966 and they have had how many FAs? Holland were in the finals of the last World Cup and they didn’t qualify for the European Cup, did the FA chairman resign?"
The NFF President said the problem Nigeria was having in CAF and FIFA is that administrators are not allowed to stay long enough in the system to integrate into the politics of the game.
He insisted that notwithstanding this setback, the federation has actually done well under his watch taking into consideration the challenges he had to battle with since taking over.
"We hired a coach and I was called upon to reverse the decision and I believe that was the beginning of the problem. We also had a case in CAS for almost nine months…and as those things were going on, we were still winning trophies.
"Beyond that, we still had a super plan for the Super Eagles. So, when we brought the last coach [Sunday Oliseh], he was highly recommended."
Pinnick who said he had learned his lessons following the engagement of Oliseh, noted that the federation under his leadership will no longer take a decision "remotely perceived not to be justifiable".
He added: "If the first time we asked Stephen Keshi to go, they had allowed him to go and we had a four-year plan from then, do you think we will all be here? There was an interference then and it cost us a lot."
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