Nigeria will most likely table a bid to stage the final Olympic qualifying tournament following the withdrawal of Egypt, officials have informed MTNFootball.com

General secretary of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Musa Amadu, disclosed they have received a directive from the Confederation of African Football (CAF and they are seriously considering it.

“CAF has told all those who put in bids the last time to bid again since Egypt have declined hosting of the eight-nation tournament that will produce the three automatic teams from Africa for the London 2012 Olympics,” Amadu said

“The letter to that effect is already with the president of the NFF (Aminu Maigari). We shall take it to government before we bid because we need to get clearance from the government before we can accept to host.

“If the federal government okays our bid, then we will apply to CAF and we are confident of winning the bid.”

In the meantime, Nigeria U23 team have insisted they will not occupy themselves with the sudden withdrawal of Egypt to host next month’s final Olympic qualifying tournament.

Egypt was picked ahead of Nigeria and South Africa by the Confederation of Africa football to host the eight nations but the Northern African country reportedly reneged on the rights following turmoil in the country.

“We are not disturbed over the news of Egypt’s withdrawal, we want to remain focused on the task ahead and that is to qualify our fatherland for the London2012 Olympics” said assistant coach Ben Iroha.

Goalkeeper coach Alloy Agu re-echoed Iroha’s position, saying “wherever they take the tournament to, our task is to build a formidable team to qualify this country to the Olympics which is a must.”

On the possibility of Nigeria hosting, Iroha said “It would of course be an advantage but we don’t want to focus on who host right now, the Federation would handle that while we do the business on the pitch”.

Nigeria are drawn in Group B alongside Morocco, Algeria and Senegal, while Egypt are in Group A with Gabon, South Africa and Cote d’ Ivoire.

The championship will be on a round-robin basis with the top two from each group advancing to the semi-finals.

The first three teams would pick automatic tickets for London 2012, while the fourth-placed team would engage an Asian team in playoff.