Nigeria’s U-20 team captain to the African Youth Championship due in Kigali, Rwanda Haruna Lukman has completed his senior move to French first division side Monaco. The 18-year-old joined Monaco last December on a youth contract after helping Nigeria to win both the African and World Under-17 titles. Lukman has now been given a three-year deal after some superb performances in the Monaco youth set-up. Lukman will also captain Nigeria’s under-20 squad at the African Youth Championship in Rwanda next month where they will play Ivory Coast, Egypt and South Africa. Since joining Monaco Lukman has been invited to the Nigerian senior side by coach Shuaibu Amodu and trained with the team during the first round of the 2010 World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers. Despite emerging as champion of the maiden U-20 West African Football Union (WAFU) championship, Ghana’s U-20 coach Sellas Tetteh believes that Nigeria’s Flying Eagles remain one of the favourites for the championship. Tetteh said that despite failing to progress beyond the quarter-final stage of tournament on home soil, the Flying Eagles remains a side to watch when the African championship commences. Apart from ranking Nigeria as one of the favourites, Tetteh, who was Ghana’s assistant coach to the 2006 edition of the Fifa World Cup in Germany, also tipped his native country, Ghana and Ivory Coast as nations from the West African region that are capable of winning the U-20 African championship. Ends
