Gara-Gombe backs NFF fact-finding committee, urges action on reforms

Former Gombe State Football Association chairman Shuaibu Gara-Gombe has welcomed the Nigeria Football Federation’s decision to create a six-member fact-finding committee after a difficult run for the country’s national teams. He believes an independent review could help expose problems that officials within the existing system may struggle to identify.

The committee is chaired by former Nigeria international Fanny Amun. Its formation follows the Super Eagles’ failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the Super Falcons’ historic absence from the 2027 Women’s World Cup. The Flying Eagles also lost heavily to Burkina Faso in the WAFU-B U-20 final.

Gara-Gombe’s support for the inquiry comes with a warning about what follows its work. He argues that Nigerian football has already produced plenty of proposals for improvement, with the major weakness being the failure to turn those proposals into practical reforms.

He said the committee should be given the freedom to examine the issues without interference and produce recommendations that can be applied. In his view, an outside assessment is useful because an independent voice may recognise shortcomings that are less visible to people operating inside the football administration.

The former Gombe FA chairman has previously described Nigeria’s football difficulties as structural rather than the result of individual personalities. He has also argued that changing the leadership of the NFF repeatedly will not, by itself, resolve the deeper weaknesses affecting the sport.

That position places the emphasis on the response to the committee’s eventual findings. Gara-Gombe believes the value of the exercise will not be judged by the report alone, but by whether the NFF and other stakeholders accept responsibility for implementing its recommendations. For him, meaningful change will depend on action after the investigation rather than another set of unfulfilled proposals.