Skip to main content

The Nigerian Super Falcons Humiliated By Officials of the Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC)

A mild drama occurred in the early hours of yesterday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, as reported by the Guardian newsletter, as players and officials of the Super Falcons were allegedly humiliated by officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) over COVID-19 test money.

The Super Falcons, who on Wednesday, secured their ticket to the 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations by defeating the Lady Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire in Abidjan, were held hostage for over three hours inside the airport.

The nine-time African champions had departed Abidjan a few hours after the match, which they won 1-0 and arrived at the international wing of the Abuja airport only to be held hostage by the NCDC officials, who, allegedly, insisted that all players and officials must undergo another round of routine tests and pay a certain amount of money before they would be allowed to leave the airport despite being armed with their COVID-19 test results done less than 24 hours before then.

“This is a national team that has brought honours to Nigeria by winning the African Women’s Nations Cup a record nine times,” a member of the Falcons’ technical crew said bitterly.

“These players just defeated their Ivoirian counterparts to qualify for the Nations Cup and all they got on arrival is this inhumane treatment from officials of the NDDC.

“I think these girls deserve better treatment,” the team’s official stated.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), yesterday, described as ‘unfortunate’ the incident at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.

NFF General Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi, said: “It was an unfortunate incident because we had our protocol officers on ground at the airport and they did the needful before the team arrived. We are a responsible organisation and the various national teams have been going out and returning to Nigeria since these COVID-19 protocols, procedures and guidelines started. We have never been caught napping.

“The issue had to do with COVID-19 protocols and we had no control over how things would be approached by the officials in charge at the airport each time.

“In this particular case, we fulfilled our part of the requirements. However, some other group of individuals arrived at the same time as the Super Falcons’ contingent and were bent on circumventing the process, and this compelled the health officials to adopt stern measures and even lock up some of their offices.

“It was beyond us, but we have already apologised to our players and officials over this incident.”


Comments

Post a Comment

Type your comments here

Popular posts from this blog

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Wins Big In Governor Nyesom Wike's Local Government Area

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, has won the Obio-Akpor, the Local Government Area of Governor Nyesom Wike in Rivers State by a landslide. Tinubu polled 80,239 votes to defeat the Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, who came a distant second with 3,829 and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who got 368 votes.
Post a Comment
Read more

Breaking! BDC Operators Close Operations In Abuja - Over Dollar Scarcity

Bureau De Change operators have announced shut down of operations in Abuja as a result of unavailability of the dollars,  The Chairman of the association, Abdullahi Dauran, made the announcement on Wednesday. The chairman of the Association of Bureau De Change Abuja chapter, issued the directive to stop sales as the exchange rates in both the official and parallel markets have become unfavourable. Dauran attributed the closure to online business transactions and cryptocurrency. Echoblog spoke to Jamilu a BDC owner who also confirmed the news. The closure of business would take effect from Thursday, February 1, 2024. On Tuesday naira closed at an all-time low of N1,482 against the United States dollar on the official window. It stayed stable at N1,450/$ at the parallel market.
Post a Comment
Read more

$1 Billion Arms Sale To Nigeria-Approved By The US

The U.S. government has announced that it has approved the sale of attack aircraft and other equipments to Nigeria. The aircraft are expected to to be used against terrorists and other gunmen operating in the West African country. According to a statement Thursday by the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the equipments are to cost Nigeria about $997 million. The acquisition of the aircraft and other equipments comes less than a year after the U.S. government supplied the country with 12 units of super tucano aircrafts paid for by Nigeria. PREMIUM TIMES had last year reported that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) had taken delivery of the second batch of six A-29 Super Tucano aircraft from the United States. The first batch also comprising six aircraft was delivered in July 2021. New Equipments According to the Thursday statement, the equipments requested to be purchased by the Nigerian government include 12 AH-1Z Attack Helicopters; twenty-eight (28) T-700 GE 401C engines (24 insta...
Post a Comment
Read more