Nigeria former chairman of Football Association (NFA), Ibrahim Galadima, 
has described his nomination to contest the CAF executive committee seat vacated by the disgraced Amos Adamu as an act of God.
Adamu has been suspended from all football activity for the next three years by Fifa for his part in the cash-for-vote scandal following a sting operation by a British tabloid.
Adamu has since launched an appeal in a bid to clear his name, but the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) promptly nominated Galadima to contest his seat at next year’s CAF elections.
“This is the work of God. I am humbled because there are so many Nigerians who are more qualified than me for the opportunity,” Galadima told SuperSport.com.
The former chairman of the Kano Pillars said he could have been in the CAF committee much earlier but decided to be patient.
“During my tenure as NFA chairman, our board had the prerogative to select a candidate for the post. If I wanted to be selfish, my name would have been put forward.
We decided to be prudent about the whole thing and Dr (Amos) Adamu was nominated instead. So my nomination was divine because I see it as something God had destined to happen at some stage in my life,” he said.
Galadima has come under harsh criticism in the past for some of the failures in Nigerian football during his tenure as NFA chairman.
He was blamed for Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup after a crucial qualifying game against Angola was played in Kano, supposedly at his behest.
He also triggered outcry across the nation when he declared, shortly after the failure to steer the Super Eagles to the World Cup, that “it was not Nigeria’s birthright to play at the world cup”.
The former NFA chief is now calling on all aggrieved parties to sheathe their swords for the “interest of Nigerian football”.
“For all those who have one thing or the other against me, I want to ask them to realise that this is not a Galadima project but something that will ultimately rub off positively on the country,” he said.