By Oluwaseun Sonde
Buhari's administration has presented Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) to fulfill Government's 28 years promise of Super Eagles winning the 1994 African Nation's Cup, while allocating three-bedroom unit houses to them in their various choice of States.
Nigerian Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola who on Friday in Abuja, presented the C of O to the latest of the recipients who could not meet up with the handing over ceremony in Delta and Imo States respectively, due to logistical gap.
Fashola explained that the houses have been allocated to the team members across states of their interest since Government could not accommodate the entire team in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said Federal Government got to know the promises made since 1994 was not fulfilled after it was reviewed by the Sports Minister, requested President to consider and approve the allocation made to redeem those promises inside the ongoing National Housing Programme being undertaken in 34 states.
Names of the latest recipients are: Sunday Oliseh, Colonel A. Asielue (Rtd), Austin Eguavoen, Peter Rufai, Victor Ikpeba, Stephen Edema, Isaac Semitoje, and late Uche Okafor, while Finidi George was mistakenly left out, but the Ministry stated that it has been sent to the President for approval.
Speaking on behalf of his team mates, the former Coach of Nigeria's Football National Team, Austin Eguavoen thanked the Federal Government for fulfilling the promise to gift each member of the squad a home after previous administrations had failed.
“I am so delighted that this finally happened after 28 years. Many administrations have come but have not succeeded in fulfilling the promise. This administration has done extremely well to actualise this promise.”
“On behalf of my colleagues, we are very grateful from the bottom of our hearts because it brings to fore the stanza of our national anthem that says the labour of our heroes shall past never be in vain.”
Eguavoen apologized to Nigerians for his failure to qualify the country for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, after the team lost to black stars of Ghana with a 1-1 at a match played in Abuja.
He stated that they lost the ticket but not the match. “We all know that I was saddled with the responsibility of qualifying Nigeria for the world cup tournament coming up in Qatar but it was not to be.
"I want to use this opportunity to apologize to the entire Nigerians. We didn’t lose the game but we lost the ticket. Still at that the federal government went ahead to fulfill their promise", Eguavoen added.
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