By Saheed Afolabi
The President of the Nigeria Eagles Supporters Club (NESC), Honorable Sunny Gullong has tipped Nigeria to succeed at the 2024 Africa Cup Of Nations (AFCON) in Cote D’Ivoire.
The supporters club boss commended the formidable squad of the Super Eagles and believe they will be victorious at the 2024 AFCON as he congratulated the Minister of Sports, Senator John Enoh and advocated him to join hands with the NFF President, Ibrahim Gusau to lead the Eagles to success.
Honorable Gullong however preached unity among the several factional supporters club in Nigeria as he urges them to collapse their structure and work for the glory of the country.
“The team we had in Uyo is a formidable team at least we keep the team and have them in camp before the AFCON in Ivory Coast, definitely I know that we can succeed,” he said.
“I want to congratulate the new Minister of Sports for coming in and having a win from the Super Eagles. I believe he’s going to join hands with NFF President, Ibrahim Gusau to see that our team come out victorious in Cote D’Ivoire. I can see that our boys are not sleeping, they are a good side that will emerge champions in Cote D’Ivoire.
“We have like five supporters club and we are looking at how we are going to harmonize. I’ve been an advocate for us coming up together to unite and synergize and move ahead. Everybody can have its business at the end of the day but once we are on the pitch to support our national team, Nigeria is just one.
“All of us need to collapse our structure and work for the glory of our nation. In Uyo we came together, my group, Ipaya and Okumagba groups came together and mostly I have been telling them from day one that my group normally close their ranks with the Nigeria Football Supporters Club anywhere they are even if I’m not there. We normally follow the rules of the NFF.
“We have started mobilizing support for the Super Eagles ahead of the AFCON in Ivory Coast, we have met with the relevant stakeholders including a consultancy firm who have agreed to sponsor majority of our supporters going to Ivory Coast and I can tell you that we have 30,000 supporters both home and abroad that will be available to support the Super Eagles at the AFCON in Ivory Coast.
“We had a meeting with the NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi including other supporters club representatives where we all agreed that we will put our differences together and work together. The funny thing is supporters club is just a registered club in Nigeria. It’s a subsidiary, it’s not subordinate and we want to thank God that NFF being the leader of football in Nigeria have been supporting supporters club not until we had a breakdown.
“If your children, five of them are having problems, that’s where I have a problem with one leader in NFF who’s trying to tear us apart. We have already made our research and very soon we will mention his name because he’s trying to frustrate the effort of us being united together. You cannot have five children and say you want to listen to one and abandon four. It’s not possible because the four of them will now see you as been sentimental for picking your own brother and forgetting about the four. Instead of you to gather the four together and give them them the same sense of belonging and this person in question, we will soon expose him because we know that he’s not supporting the supporters club unity and that is where I got angry in Uyo because if we are trying to speak with one voice and someone feels that so so person is more important than the other one.
“I myself have an agreement with some brotherly supporters club and we are trying to see how we can synergize together and stand as one party to move the nation forward.”
