Nigeria FIFA rankings fall yet again

Mixed reactions have trailed the latest world football governing body, FIFA’s rating of countries announced yesterday.

The Assistant Technical Director of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Coach Shiju Lagunju who spoke with Daily Trust said though FIFA uses verifiable indices to rate countries, the rating is of no effect on the performance of the teams.

“I don’t believe in it [the ranking], it doesn’t show the quality of our game,” he said.

“Does it really matter that Belgium, ranked 2nd was beaten by Wales? Does it really matter that Spain, ranked 8th was defeated by Italy or Brazil who are in the top ten, unable to make the knock out stage of COPA America?”

He insisted that one can only ascertain the strength of a team when the chips are down, expressing optimism that Nigeria will bounce back as the rebuilding process will soon start yielding results.

On his part, Head coach of the Nigeria Professional Football League side, Warri Wolves Mansur Abdullahi said Nigeria’s ranking was unfortunate, nothing that “It shows that Eagles are not improving.”

Also, the Chairman of the FCT chapter of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Kayode Adeniyi who expressed dismay over the ranking, said it was being anticipated since the team did not play any match in recent times.

“What the stakeholders have been doing is to fight among themselves. Until we get our act together, we will continue to go down in subsequent rankings,” he submitted.

Similarly, a sports analyst Karlos Aondoaver Tsokar blamed the country’s current position on the inconsistency of the team.

“We have been very inconsistent in our performance in all international competitions. Without a coach for a while and those that we have managed to place in acting positions have not been able to properly assemble a team that would play with the passion, strength and agility our Super Eagles were known for.

“At a point, we were the most entertaining team in Africa, such that even if the results were abysmal as it is now, we were still rated well. But now it is different,” he lamented.

Another sports pundit, Modupe Oyewale expressed optimism that the team will bounce back, stressing that “We can only hope that things get better and that the Super Eagles bounce back to winning ways so that our ranking position can improve.”

Nigeria, yesterday dropped nine places in the latest world football governing body (FIFA)’s rating.

The Super Eagles were ranked 61st in June’s rating but have now dropped to be ranked 16th best team in Africa and 70th in the world.

Algeria, one of Nigeria’s 2018 World Cup qualifiers opponents with 781 points, are the highest ranked team on the continent and 32nd in the world.

Cote d’Ivoire (35), Ghana (36), Senegal (41) and Egypt (43) completes the top five teams in Africa in that order.

Others in the top ten are: Tunisia (45), Cameroon (53), Morocco (54), Congo DR (59) and Mali (61) who occupied the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th positions respectively.

On the global stage, Euro 2016 surprise package Iceland rise to their highest ranking after reaching the quarter-finals of Euro 2016, moving up 12 places to 22nd.

The top five teams remained the same, with Argentina ranked first ahead of Belgium, Colombia, Germany and Chile.

Euro 2016 winners Portugal and defeated finalists France moved up two and 10 places respectively to sit sixth and seventh, with Spain, Brazil and Italy rounding off the top 10.

Daily Trust

Militants blow up gas pipeline in southwest Nigeria

A gas pipeline operated by Nigeria's state energy company in southwestern Ogun state has been attacked by men disguised as maintenance staff, local police said on Thursday.

Attacks by militants on oil and gas facilities in the Niger Delta region - in the south and southeast - over the last few months briefly pushed crude production in the OPEC member to 30-year lows in the spring.

But facilities in the southwest region, which is not part of the Delta area, have so far not been targeted. Militant groups have called for a greater share of Nigeria's oil and gas wealth to go to the Delta, which is the country's main energy hub.

Muyiwa Adejobi, a spokesman for Ogun state police said the attack took place on Tuesday night in the town of Ogijo.

"We were told that some guys came in two vehicles dressed as officials in charge of repairs and maintenance of the gas pipelines and then used dynamite to blow up the gas line belonging to a subsidiary of (state energy firm) NNPC," he said.

"Unfortunately one of the lines was damaged. There are other lines that were not affected," he added.

The pipeline supplies the commercial capital Lagos, which is around 80km (50 miles) from Ogun state, and other parts of the southwest.

Adejobi said there were "insinuations that militants could be responsible" but added that police "are not jumping to conclusions yet as to which group was responsible". Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Reuters

Corruption taints defence contracts in Nigeria

A presidential committee found that defence contracts were awarded to companies "who lacked the necessary technical competence", the seven-page statement said.

There were also outstanding contracts for "armoured vehicles, ballistic vests, night vision binoculars and three unmanned aerial vehicles".

Other armoured vehicles delivered in 2007 for peace-keeping operations in Sudan "scandalously broke down."

"Many of the contracts were characterised by lack of due process, in breach of extant procurement regulations and tainted by corrupt practices," said the statement, describing the findings of the interim report which audited procurement contracts from 2007 until 2015.

The presidential report is designed to guide Nigeria's anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in their criminal investigations into corruption in Nigeria.

During the raging Boko Haram insurgency, Nigerian troops reported that they were under-equipped to fight the insurgents, who had captured a chunk of the country's northeast in their quest to create a hardline Islamic state.

Buhari said in December last year that the Islamists were "technically" defeated, though sporadic attacks still happen in Nigeria.

The EFCC is investigating and has charged some military bigwigs -- almost exclusively belonging to the opposition party -- with corruption, causing critics to say Buhari is using the corruption war as a way to silence dissent.

But Buhari has maintained his anti-graft war shows no bias.

"Whoever deter us from fighting corruption will suffer the consequences," Buhari warned earlier in July.

TimesLive

Video - NFF expected to unveil new Super Eagles coach next week

In football news, Nigerians are eagerly awaiting the announcement of the coach for their national team, the Super Eagles. Three candidates have been shortlisted for the top job, as CCTV's Kelechi Emekalam reports.

Government and oil workers reach agreement to end strike

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have called off their one-week strike and therefore directed members to resume work at their various stations.

It was learnt that the unions decided to call off the strike after the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting yesterday.

The meeting ended after the stakeholders reached an agreement on issues concerning job security, causalisation of workers and improved welfare.

PENGASSAN said the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, assured the oil workers that the restructuring exercise had been done in the mentioned agencies and no jobs were lost.

At the meeting presided over by the Minster of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, some international oil companies which had axed workers without due process were directed to revert to the status quo.

A statement issued at the end of the meeting and signed by the President of PENGASSAN, F.O. Johnson, President of NUPENG, Igwe Achese, and their secretaries stated that based on the understanding at the parley, and in view of the on-going social dialogue, the meeting urged PENGASSAN that in order to make for an unfettered execution of most of the resolutions reached, the national strike by its members which started on Thursday July 7, 2016 be suspended.

"Most of the IOCs and Indigenous Oil Companies that have laid-off workers without passing through the due process of the law all agreed to comply, and in such cases where the workers had gone on strike or been locked out by employers, the meeting directed them to unlock such premises while the actions of employers have also been put on hold to make for a free and unfettered atmosphere during the negotiations.

"This will help the International Oil companies to stem the tide of redundancies being declared in the industry and help address job losses of oil workers that would otherwise be put into the unemployment market.

"The meeting noted with satisfaction the report of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources that almost all the IOCs have signed into these proposals," the statement said.

Guardian