The Matchday four AFCON match between Nigeria and Libya has been covered with a lot of controversy with Nigeria reportedly been held hostage at the Libya Airport.

Libyan before coming to Nigeria had only a point and needed to win Nigeria in one of the two games to fancy their chances of qualifications.

The Libya plan was to create an unfriendly scene in Nigeria, pick a point in Uyo and use the unfriendly scene they created in Nigeria to destabilize the Super Eagles in Libyan for them to be able to pick three points from Nigeria but Nigeria won them in Uyo.

The  unfriendly scene planned by the Libyans was the  posting fake pictures they took in the mosque in Libya and outside Nigeria Airport to blackmail Nigeria of  poor treatment claims, caused by their FA.

Libyan Tricks and Blackmail 

Libyan Football Federation created chaos for its own team, the Mediterranean Knights by trying to sabotage their team to blackmail Nigeria FA of mistreatment.

The Libya Federation only informed the NFF that its team was landing in Port Harcourt, and not Uyo, only three hours until the team’s arrival on Tuesday.

Emmanuel Ayanbunmi , the NFF assistant director spoke to the General Secretary of LFF, at length, on Monday, 7th October and he never hinted that his team would be arriving on Tuesday (the following day). He only said he would get back to him but he never did. On Monday evening, someone sent as an advance party by the LFF called him and said his team would be arriving on Tuesday by noon. The NFF made all arrangements to receive the team in Uyo on arrival.

It was only an hour after the team was airborne that the Libya  told the NFF the delegation would be landing in Port Harcourt. That disrupted so many things, but the NFF still raced on hurdles to get approval from federal authorities to allow their plane to fly them to Uyo once they concluded immigration formalities in Port Harcourt. Apparently, that would have meant additional cost to the LFF from the charter company, and they didn’t want that, so they preferred to travel from Port Harcourt to Uyo by road.

Ayanbunmi added that the Libyan delegation jettisoned road transportation arrangements made for them by the NFF and instead hired buses on their own.

If they travelled on buses that were not air-conditioned, that had nothing to do with the NFF as they hired their own buses. The NFF provided security for them, with men and vehicles in front and behind their buses, so the NFF are unmoved about their complaints and threats.

They created all the scenes to make it look like Nigeria Mistreated them in Uyo but it was all planned work by the Libyan FA to destabilize the Super Eagles and get at least 4 points from the Super Eagles to fancy their chances where they will have Rwanda and Benin to play in their last two games.

Nigeria Mistreatment In Libya.

After creating an unfriendly scene in Nigeria, Libya used those scenes to blackmail Nigeria by saying they are revenging by holding the Nigeria Super Eagles hostage for over 14 hours.

The chartered ValueJet aircraft was, strangely and in a dangerous manner, diverted to the small airport away from Benghazi just as the pilot was completing his approach to the Benghazi Airport. We understand the Al Abraq International Airport is only used for hajj operations.

Fatigued players and officials have remained nonplussed as the host Libyan Football Federation failed to send any reception team or even vehicles to take the delegation members from the airport to their hotel, said to be 3 hours away in Benghazi.

The NFF made arrangements for separate vehicles for the team, but the plan was unhinged by the diversion of the aircraft.

The Nigeria delegation after being held more than 14 hours at  Al Abraq Airport after landing in Libya decided to pull out of the game and returned home waiting for CAF and FIFA verdict on the situation.