By Muhammed Abubakar, Reporting
PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has expressed his displeasure at the lackluster performance of the Super Eagles in their last group match against Guinea Bissau which ended 1-0 at the ongoing AFCON in Ivory Coast.
Expressing Tinubu’s misgivings, Minister of Sports Development, Sen. John Owan Enoh, while chatting up the players on Zoom, revealed that President Tinubu told him that he was not too impressed with the Super Eagles’ display in their last match.
Enoh made this known while speaking with the Super Eagles players and coaches via a Zoom meeting on Wednesday ahead of Nigeria’s round of 16 clash with Cameroon.
Stonix News reports that Nigeria defeated Guinea-Bissau 1-0 and finished in second position in Group A behind leaders Equatorial Guinea.
“One of the main reasons that made me have this call with you is the chance I had meeting with Mr President yesterday, I went to the Villa for something else and the president cornered me and said, ‘we managed to qualify [for the Round of 16].’
“I said your Excellency, that is how we will be going until we win the tournament. And he said, ‘tell our players I wasn’t too impressed in our last match but I know that now that they are off the Group stages, I know they are going to impress me more and more.’ That is what the president told me.
“The president is actually watching your matches and he is urging you and he knows that there was a lot of consciousness at the Group stages and he knows that from the Round of 16 that they [Super Eagles] are going to be more and more impressive.
“I remembered that in 2022 in Cameroon, at the Group stages, Egypt as a country barely struggled to qualify but that same Egypt went ahead to go and play the finals.
“I remembered that same Egypt, we won them in the Group stage. I remembered that superlative goal scored by [Kelechi] Iheanacho.
“I also need to communicate to you the mood back home in the country, Every Nigerian is rooting for you and believing you are going to do it again like the slogan of the NFF,” Eno noted.
Responding to the president’s reported remarks, Super Eagles captain, Ahmed Musa, urged President Tinubu to come over to Ivory Coast and cheer them up rather than gluing to their television screens to watch their performance.
Musa, who spoke on behalf of the Super Eagles players, said: “We have a message that we are going to send to you (Enoh) to the President.
“We don’t want him to watch the game on TV anymore, we want him over here (Ivory Coast) to come and cheer us together. So, this is our own message to the President.”
Responding, Enoh said: “The president will come. I can assure you the president will come. He has told me when he wants to come and my prayer is that gradually we are going to get to the point where the President can come. He will come. I will bring the president, he will come,” he assured.
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