The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board began its participation at the 16th edition of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Games (NOGIC) football event with a thrilling 3-2 win over the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) Warri at the Legacy Pitch of the Old National Stadium, Lagos on Tuesday morning.
The Board took a deserved lead ten minutes into the game through Godswill Chukwuemeka of its Capacity Building Division, but the boys from PTI rallied and equalized a few minutes later. The match was disrupted shortly after following torrential rain fall which affected the pitch.
On resumption of play after the rain enforced half time break, a wonderful free kick by Ismaila Abubakar sailed directly into the net and restored the Board’s lead. But once again, the boys from PTI equalized, bringing the scores to 2-2.
The Board continued to pile pressure on PTI’s goal in the second half and the efforts were rewarded through Nura Aliyu Danmaraya of the Human Resources Division who came in as a substitute for Benson Inife who suffered an injury from a bad tackle by one of the PTI boys.
Danmaraya’s goal which came five minutes to the end of the 60-minutes encounter settled the contest and secured the three points at stake. The win is the Board’s first victory at the NOGIC Games since its debut at the last edition of the tournament in 2014.
The victory has given the Board the needed motivation to battle the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Wednesday, an encounter that will determine the winner of group. NNPC had on Monday defeated PTI by 2-0 to garner three points.
Speaking after the match, Coach of the NCDMB team, Mr. Bernard Oweipade-Gboloye commended the players for their display of passion and determination and encouraged them to put up a similar effort in their next match. He expressed optimism that the players will not be intimidated by the reputation of the NNPC who are the defending champions. In his words, “my boys are doing well and we are hoping to surprise NNPC in our match against them. We are not going to take chances.”
Nine teams are participating in the tournament and group B includes Chevron, Exxonmobil and Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) while group C has Shell, Total and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (Agip).
Winners of the groups qualify automatically for the group stage alongside the best loser from the groups for the semi-final.
