Stakeholders accuse Akinwunmi of Vote Buying ahead of Lagos FA election

Desperate times are here again in Lagos Football fraternity as delegates prepare to go to the polls on May 27th for elections into the Executive Board of the Lagos State Football Association.

With just few days to the elections, there are claims by some stakeholders that the incumbent board led by Barrister Seyi Akinwunmi has resorted to vote buying and intimidation in his bid to win a third term mandate.

According to information made available, Akinwunmi and his group are so desperate to win the next election of the association by directly inducing delegates with money.

Investigation revealed that Akinwunmi led board recently gave FC Robo and Dreams Stars Ladies a sum of 500,000 naira (Five Hundred Thousand) each ahead of the new Women’s football league campaign of which the kick-off date has not even been announced.

It discovered that the money was given to both clubs without the approval of the board which has not meet since January, 2019.

The FA said the money which many described as vote buying mechanism was a soft loan to ease their participation in the yet to be commenced League.

The worried stakeholders said, “Lagos FA election has never gotten to such desperate height in the history of elections into the highest football governing body in Lagos state.

“Such intervention has not been officially given to any club before during the lifetime of this present board until now. This terrible coincidence is very worrisome which is tantamount to electoral malpractice and abuse of office.”

Our source said despite the window dressing attempts to make football look so good in Lagos under Akinwunmi who is also the First Vice President of the Nigeria Football Federation, players have continued to suffer.

“In the last 2 editions of the WGB/Lagos FA Cup, MFM FC did not collect their winnings. The FA successfully converted it to club affiliation fees which has made it impossible for players who are the real actors to benefit from the prize money won by the club.”

Sadly, this things has been happening before now, The current FA cup champions, Smart City FC did not get their runners up prize money last season until it almost became  an embarrassment to  the sponsors, who make  sure they paid the full sponsorship fee before the end of the championship.