Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has kicked against Nigeria’s quest to host the Africa Cup of Nations in 2027, saying it is not the country’s priority for now.
The chairman House committee on Sports, Hon. Ekene Abubakar Adams stated this on Tuesday while addressing newsmen in Kaduna.
“It is a good thing for Nigeria to host a major championship like AFCON, however not Nigeria’s current priority,” Adams said.
“We are not kicking against bidding for the Nations Cup, but I’m against the timing of such a step in relation to our current economic realities which every one of us is not ignorant of.”
“As someone who has the fear of God, I can tell you for free that talking about hosting the Nations Cup has to do with building new facilities, and renovating stadiums but all of these things are only beneficial to we the stakeholders and politicians to make more money.”
“I don’t think we mean well for the common man if this is our current priority as a government. The common man can hardly feed three times a day with the effect of the subsidy removal and it will not be good to hide under the disguise of sports and things like this to enrich ourselves at the expense of poor Nigerians.”
“For example, the palliatives the National Assembly approved for Nigerians to cushion the effect of the subsidy hardship has not gotten to Nigerians across the country and the only thing we the stakeholders are concerned about now is wanting to host the AFCON.
“And after spending so much money to host this AFCON, we will then leave the facilities dilapidated as usual and the lack of maintenance story will continue which another government will come again to spend so much on and nothing meaningful would have changed.”