rickkid:
By the end of the tournament in February, Equatorial Guinea will have scored a massive image coup and Nigeria and the other countries who chickened out will be left with egg on their faces. This was a prime opportunity to project Nigeria positively and display a leadership role on the continent. Imagine Nigeria being the country which bailed out the rest of Africa and put on a great show against all outside expectations. Imagine Nigeria successfully defending the AFCON trophy in front of 68,000 Green and White shirts in Abuja. Imagine the rest of Africa and the world looking up at Nigeria as it would have sent the most evocative statement about our confidence in ourselves and our ability to get things done.
Instead, it's a TINY country like Equatorial Guinea which will now bad mouth us afterward saying things like "What Nigeria dared not do, we did excellently."
When all of you will be complaining that other people badmouth Nigerians, you don't see how things like this create these negative pictures of us.
After we've gone around beating our chests about how we are Africa's first ever $500bn economy and the largest economy in Africa, ordinary 4 week, 4 city tournament which we already have the infrastructure to host, we choose to chicken out.

Patriotic ideal from you, boy. Ideals are different from the real, you know? I understand where you are coming from, ok? We can host the tourney now, u understand!
Coury of loud mouth, big for nothing, unsubstantiated egos.