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EFFIONG REPLACES INJURED AINA FOR NIGERIA’S MATCHES WITH SEYCHELLES, EGYPT

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Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in a swift reaction, has replaced injured Chelsea defender Ola Aina with Akwa United forward Ndifreke Effiong for the dead rubber AFCON qualifying match against Seychelles and International friendly against Egypt next week.

NFF announced the invitation of Effiong on their official twitter handle as a replacement for Aina who although made his comeback from injury last week for Torino will miss the game owing to an unspecified injury.

Aina was on Sunday sent off in Torino’s 2-3 loss to Bologna in the Serie A. He was in time added on after regulation time for two bookable offence in quick succession to blot his near perfect loan spell in Italy with Torino.

Effiong joined is home town club Akwa United from Abia Warriors before the start of the current Nigeria Professional Football League ( NPFL) season and few minutes before the announcement of his call up to the Super Eagles he scored the opener for Akwa United in their 2-1 win away to Heartland FC of Owerri.

A member of the Nigeria Olympic squad to the last Olympic games in Rio, Effiong becomes the second player to be called up to the squad after Ikouwem Udoh was called up as replacement for injured Samuel Kalu two days ago.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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