The Nigeria Super Eagles have finally been allowed to leave Al ABraq Airport after being held hostage by Libyan authorities for over 17 hours without food or water, MySportDab reports.
In a shocking incident that steered vituperations and backlash from Nigerian and African football fans, Libyan authorities held the Nigerian football delegation in a hostage situation for several hours ahead of their slated reverse 2025 AFCON qualifiers clash on Tuesday, October 15.
Viral footage on social media showed Super Eagles worn out and sleeping on cozy benches as Libyan authorities refused to attend to them for several hours.
Nigeria Super Eagles captain William-Troost Ekong, detailing all that transpired, said the Libyan government refused to grant the team approval to land at the approved location in Benghazi.
This led to diversion of the flight mid-air to an abandoned Airport at Al ABraq. At the Al ABraq Airport, Ekong further revealed only the pilot, who is a Tunisian, was allowed entry to sleep in the facility while Nigeria’s crew and the player’s were denied and had to use to the space on the parked plane outside to rest.
Also, it was further revealed that the hosts wanted use bus to transport the players from Al ABraq to Tripoli instead of Benghazi where the match was to be played.
The Super Eagles rejected the proposal citing insecurity and demanded to only transfer by air not road. Meanwhile, the hostage situation at the Airport had already forced the players to decide not to play again.
This led NFF to issue statement condemning the inhuman treatment and revealing that plans are underway to transport the team back to Nigeria but the team were still stuck as the Airport at that time.
Now, at the time of filing this report, they have been finally released and will travel back to Nigeria without playing the match again.
African football’s governing body CAF are expected to investigate the incident, reschedule the match and penalize defaulting parties. Watch Video On Twitter
