The Boko-haram factor: Soldiers to escort Eaglets to Niamey

In order to avert any security breach from Boko Haram insurgence, a retinue of combined se­curity forces will today escort the 21-man Gold­en Eaglets with their coaches and officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) from Sokoto State to Niamey, Niger Republic for the Africa U-17 Champion­ship starting this week­end.


The General Secretary of the football federation, Musa Amadu, who made the disclosure in a chat with SoccerStar in his of­fice at the Glass House Abuja, however, expressed confidence that the team will lift the tournament trophy considering the quality of trainings given to them.

Dismissing the insinu­ations that the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test affected some regulars in the team, he also dis­closed that the federation would make every effort to procure the match clips of their opponents, stress­ing that he had no iota of doubt that the team will not qualify to the World Cup in Chile.

His words: “The Eaglets have been in Sokoto for the last phase of their train­ing for more than 10 days, training under very harsh afternoon weather condi­tions. It is a good thing that they have been there under the scorching sun to help them acclimatize to the weather in Niger Republic.

“By Thursday (today), they will leave Sokoto to Niamey, Niger Repub­lic and we have arranged armed security men to escort them to Niamey. They will stay in the Royal Palace Hotel, which has already been inspected by the NFF Director of Com­petition, who will equally lead the delegation.

“We are confident that the 21 selected players will do Nigeria proud, be­ginning with the opening game against Niger Re­public on February 15. We know that they will record an outright victory over Niger, though they would face the challenges of con­fronting the home team.

“Only recently, the host team lost to South Africa in a friendly match and we are doing everything pos­sible to ensure that we se­cure the tape of that match for the technical crew and the players to gain more knowledge of the host team. We are sure of get­ting to the semifinal when we play the first three matches, which will guar­antee Nigeria the ticket to World Cup in Chile.