A member of the House of Representatives, Dayo Ademola, has commended the Nigeria Football Federation for mobilising support for the Super Eagles at the ongoing 34th Africa Cup of Nations 2023.

The NFF’s Media Coordinator, Ademola Olajire, made this known in a statement in Lagos on Tuesday.

The lawmaker, who is also a member of the House Committee on Sports, represents the Apapa Federal Constituency in the lower legislative chamber.

According to the statement, the lawmaker also said that the Super Eagles have greatly improved on their performances at the AFCON 2023.

The statement also quoted Mr Ademola as saying that the Super Eagles had attracted many football fans despite playing a draw in their encounter against Equatorial Guinea in their opening match in Group A.

He said the strong sense of purpose exhibited by the three-time African champions had underlined the essence of unity in the team.

Nigeria has earned heart-warming victories over host Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon and Angola to qualify for a semi-final face-off against South Africa on Wednesday in Bouake.

The lawmaker expressed belief that the motivation and support provided for the team was a deliberate effort of the Ibrahim Gusau-led NFF.

This was after the National Assembly eased the path for proper funding going by their collaboration with the Federal Government.

He said. “This 10th Assembly has sports as one of its main agenda and we have young men as chairmen of the youth committees as well as the youth in parliament. They were here including the deputy speaker and the deputy majority leader and others to support the team.

“It goes to show that this 10th Assembly is passionate and wants sports to move forward. With the cooperation of the executive, you will see that in a long time, what the NFF has been able to do.

”This is in terms of finances has never been so in the past and this is to show both the legislature and the executive are completely in support of sports development.”

According to the lawmaker, the NFF president has been doing his best to mobilise support for the Super Eagles by providing tickets for the matches.

“These tickets have been allocated and you know, there is politics around allocations. I’m sure the NFF president will see to it that fans are mobilised to the stadium to watch the Super Eagles at the Stadium of Peace on Wednesday,” he said.

He also suggested that with the upgrading of facilities as witnessed in Ivory Coast, Nigeria should also aim at hosting the 2029 edition of AFCON.

Mr Ademola said that this could be the needed impetus required to revamp stadiums and other related facilities to also accelerate development of the Nigerian economy.

(NAN)