“I Never Had the Opportunity to Lift the World Cup” – Akpabio Tells Nigeria’s Flamingos

And all my distinguished colleagues, particularly the chairman of the Senate Committee on Sports, himself, he chose the committee by himself. So let's, uh, thank you. Senator Ndingi was in charge of the Hockey Federation of Nigeria for how many years? For eight years. He was in charge of Hockey Federation of Nigeria for eight years. So a great lover of sports And he follows you wherever you go. I'm talking about our dear chairman of NSC, Diko. Wherever you go, he follows you. So the secretary of the... Of course, sports administrators in the country. I will say that things are changing. Things are changing. Things are changing. NFF must learn from what these children have learned, have done. And NSC must learn from the... Gold medals and all the sports administrators. But when you were introducing Deputy Senate President, you talked about Barao, Barao Jibrin FC. Is it because I've not reached the first division? The Gossela Pabu FC is in the second division right now. And I'm sure you're aware that the promoter is my dear wife. And in addition, she has added an academy, a football academy. You can Google it and see, pure football academy. Children nine years, ten years are receiving free education there. And they will stay, they will get free, they have free scholarship from me, and they are being trained right now to you. The academy is just five minutes from the airport. And with the standard international football field, so that when we have tournaments and other countries are coming, they can also choose that place to train. I'm sure you are not aware of this. You are aware. So why didn't you mention? You only mentioned that of the senior special assistant of sport to the federal government. So please take time to go and visit the academy. And then also visit those students to encourage them. And I must thank the national coach of the Super Eagles. After the last match they had in Oyo, they went there with the goalkeeper, all of them. You were there. Thank you. You led the team. You went there to go and meet with those students. They will never forget it. You took pictures with them and you gave them pep talk and you encouraged them. We expect to feed the national team from time to time from that. From that football academy, and encourage all others who have football clubs to also build football academies, so that we can use the football academies to feed our national teams. Let me also point out that for a while now, we have been missing out, very intermittent, As a young man then, a young lawyer, I was always glued to television whenever Okocha, J.J. Okocha was playing, whether in his club or for the nation, because I knew that he would discipline all those other players from other countries. And he did. I remember the days of Finidi. And I remember the miracle of the man. I remember Samy Ten's turn. I remember all of them. I remember the Atlanta Olympics. My brother, the country cannot go backwards. This president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is insisting that now that he has brought reform into the country, the country must go forward. And these children, you are the pride of the world today. You are the pride of Africa, the flamingos. So I want to, on behalf of the entire Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the National Assembly as a whole, congratulate you sincerely for bringing these beautiful trophies here. And I must confess that when I was your age, I didn't have the opportunity to touch a World Cup. But today you've given me the opportunity to touch a World Cup. So, I am now very determined to win the World Cup, so I don't know whether Ediko will allow me to play, but I'm telling you I'm determined. You know, so I was in Cote d'Ivoire at the time when Nigeria beat South Africa in a very tense match where we scored a second goal instead. It was cancelled.