Buhari hails Amaju’s emergence at CAF

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday met with the Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalong in Aso Rock, where he hailed the emergence of a Nigerian, Amaju Pinnick as a Confederation of African Football (CAF) executive committee member.

Nigeria is making a return to the highest organ in CAF since the exit of Amos Adamu.

Addressing State House Correspondents shortly after the meeting, Dalong said President Buhari congratulated Nigeria for clinching the CAF membership seat and the general progress of sports in the country.

According to him, the President promised to  continue to support sports despite the economic constraint.

“I came in to brief the President on the development in sports since he went on vacation and returned. I also informed him of the successes recorded so far in CAF where a Nigerian has been elected an executive member of the board.

“He promised that even though we are economically constrained, government will continue to support the progress of sports generally.

“I updated him on the need for us to intensify our mobilisation efforts for the World Cup qualifier. Although we are topping the group, it is not yet Uhuru for us. We need to do more.

“I drew his attention to the fact that we have received the Queen’s Relay baton which kickstarts the mobilisation for Commonwealth Games in Australia in 2018.

“The baton is a commonwealth tradition which is always flagged off by the Queen and she did that in March. It has been to six African countries with Nigeria being the seventh and it will proceed from here,” he said