EXPOSED! Edo Deputy Governor`s Sister-In-law, Sabina Chikere Holds State FA Hostage (Investigation)

Joe Ufuo In Benin City

Mrs Sabina Amiemenoghena Chikere is the current Permanent Secretary at the Edo State Sports Commission. The elder sister to the wife of the deputy governor of the state, Mrs Maryam Philip Shaibu came into the sports scene in the early days of the Godwin Obaseki`s administration.

Our investigation has revealed that the “powerful woman” is the most dreaded personality in the sporting circle of the state as even the Sports Commission Chairman, an Olympian, Yusuf Alli does not command enough respect as the woman does within the sports council and the commission.

Mrs Chikere whose main occupation before the brother-in-law became the Edo State deputy governor was just a “businesswoman” in Lagos was first appointed Special Assistant to the DG (his brother-in-law) on sports and had no history of sports administration before then. Truth Live News investigation also revealed that the power tussle between the woman and the pioneer chairman of the sports commission, Mr Dudu Orumen, a veteran sports broadcaster and marketer led to the replacement of the latter with the current chairman, Alli, who came from the same LGA with Sabina Chikere, a source told our correspondent.

The story of how Mrs Chikere who was only an SA to the Deputy Governor in 2017 became a Permanent Secretary in the Edo State civil service without prior knowledge or record of being in the service has become a puzzle that the Edo state civil servants are yet to solve.

Sabina, as she is popularly known as has consistently interfered with football administration in the state, putting up her overbearing footprints on all its activities, particularly, the state FA and Bendel Insurance FC.

A source who spoke to our correspondent at the Dr Samule Osaigbovo Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin City confirmed that Permanent Secretary has recently been working with some elements within and around the football family to scuttle elections of the State Football Association which was said to have been postponed at her instance because according to our investigation, her preferred candidate for the position of the FA chairman was yet to purchase the nomination form as of when the sales closed and she ordered that the process should start again while all those who purchased forms before were asked to buy a fresh one.

The constitution of the electoral committee for the FA board election was another issue where Mrs Sabina Chikere ordered that the committee currently chaired by Barrister Abel, with Obasuyi Emmanuel and the state FA secretary, Andrew Unujiaga as members, be dissolved and reconstituted and named a particular civil servant who is said to be “loyal to her” has the chairman.

According to our source who pleaded for anonymity, “Madam Sabina wants the electoral committee already inaugurated by the Board of the state Football Association dissolved because there`s a particular guy she feels would do her biddings who must be chairman of the committee, but the board members are insisting that the current committee should be allowed to do its job”.

She said: “This is creating a serious crisis in the FA as we speak because all the states in Nigeria have conducted elections for their FAs but only Edo is still battling with the composition of its committee because this woman is holding the FA to ransom”.

“The problem is, everyone fears her in the commission, so much so that even the Chairman, Yusuf Alli who is her boss avoids her like a plague. He has refused deliberately to get involved in crisis bedevilling our FA because he knows this woman is the issue”, our corresponded asserted.

Our source also revealed that there are plots to remove the state FA Secretary if he doesn’t “play balls” and the acting chairman, Dr Aghedo who also doubles as the team doctor for Bendel Insurance FC has been threatened to be dropped from the club`s team ahead their continental engagements.

Truth Live News investigation, however, revealed that Mrs Sabina Chikere, the permanent secretary at the Edo State Sports Commission does not possess the academics qualifications and enough civil years of experience to occupy the current position she holds as many who were there before her and working hard that they could be promoted to that position had their dreams shattered at the emergence of the sister-in-law of the state deputy governor, comrade Philip Shaibu.

The investigation continues…