The Ivorians saw off the Super Eagles of Nigeria in a tense 2-1 defeat.

Two strikes from Franck Kessie and Sebastien Haller were enough to see off Troost-Ekong’s opener.

It will be recall that during the just concluded African Cup of Nations, Dangote and his billionaire friend Femi Otedola pledged $75,000 together for every goal scored by the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the knockout stage of the tournament.

Yesterday, Otedola redeemed his pledge of $25000 per goal to representatives of the Super Eagles. The representatives also made a visit to Olakunle Alake, GMD of Dangote Group who presented them with a cheque of $50,000 of behalf of Aliko Dangote.

The team was represented by John Ogu, Team Admin. Enebi Achor and Kit manager Chidi Ngoka.

It was an early scrappy strike that decided the match as Baghdad Bounedjah ball was deflected into the net.

The game didn’t really create any spark as only few chances were created, though the story would have been different if Sengal’s penalty call wasn’t overturn by VAR.

For Senegal a win would have mean they will secure their first Cup of Nations trophy but it was Algeria who secure their second African Cup of Nations trophy after 29 years.

With seconds to go, Riyad Mahrez scored free kick from the edge of the box as Algeria defeated Nigeria 2-1.

Rohr told newsmen during a post – match interview that it was a game of two halves, adding however that Algeria were the better side at the end of the day .

He said “Until the last minute, Algeria had a better first half than us, but we came back a much better team in the second half. Unfortunately, we conceded a goal in the last minute. I think the players wanted to go to extra time believing that perhaps Algeria will get tired and we could win the match in extra time. It was a wonderful game . We lost it , so we are not happy. Congrats to the winners. They were the better team in the first half. We scored an own goal, we were unlucky but we came back like we have always done all the time in this tournament. When we found ourselves in a difficult situation, we always reacted and we did that also today coming back through a penalty and playing a better second half but a wonderful free – kick from a football genius made the difference. In our last game , we won in the last minute against South Africa and today we lost. That’s football, ”

In a statement signed by his Special Advisier on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, the President said with a well-deserved victory over the Bafana Bafana of South Africa, he believes, like millions of other sports-loving Nigerians, that the mission of having the trophy in our hands for the fourth time is almost accomplished for the high flying Eagles.

President Buhari assured the players that Nigerians are praying for them to fly higher and get to the peak of the tournament, knowing that the taste of victory is sweet and what they have achieved so far is pleasing to Nigerians irrespective of ethnic, religious or political inclination

The two players spent several hours with the CAF medical team before joining their colleagues at the Helnan Palestine Hotel beach resort .

The AFCON has not been known to record any positive dope test in its previous 31 editions.

According to the report, “A large sum of money was supposed to be transferred into the bank of the Zimbabwean goalkeeper but the transaction was not completed after an Egyptian bank raised the red flag and reportedly declined to handle the issue.”

It is allegedly, Katumbi paid a large amount of money to Chipezeze to allow DR Congo score at will. Substitute keeper Chipezeze, who only played in the match after first- choice George Chigova picked up an injury during the warm- up, refused to comment on the issue , saying he’s been advised not to respond to the reports.

However, Katumbi sent a statement to CAF, denying all allegations and calling them partial fiction and poor journalism.

The statement reads “Mr. Katumbi formally denounces these accusations English. Mr. Katumbi would wish to underline that by the time these alleged accusations happened, he had already left Egypt. So it was physically impossible for him to approach any players. His passport confirms this and a copy of that is attached to this letter.”