As Namibia head to Conakry this weekend in a bid to keep their 2010 World Cup hopes alive, a small list of countries seek to secure their qualification to the next round, well ahead of the end of the second rod of qualifiers.

Nigeria lead the limited list of contenders who can make sure of their progress past the first phase of Africa’s World Cup preliminaries if they win in the latest round of qualifiers at the weekend.

The Super Eagles, along with Burkina Faso, are fancied to keep up their 100 percent record and make sure they fill one of the 20 berths reserved for the teams in the second phase, which stars at the end of the year

Nigeria host Equatorial Guinea in Abuja on Saturday six days after beat them 1-0 away in Malabo in Group Four.

Burkina Faso, who have been the surprise package of the qualifiers to date, are expect to win their home game against the Seychelles in Group Nine and record a fourth successive triumph, which will also be enough to ensure their progress.

Rwanda is the only other side with three wins from three games at the halfway stage of the  opening qualifiers but face a backlash in Casablanca on Saturday where they take on a Morocco side they inflicted an embarrassing 3-1 defeat on last weekend.

There are 23 fixtures scheduled across the continent for a fourth successive weekend, marking the end of a marathon month of World Cup matches.

Nigeria’s highly rated strike force has been overshadowed by captain Joseph Yobo, who scored the winning in both their last two games.

“I had set myself the target of at least one goal in the qualifiers,” the Everton defender told reporters this week.

Nigeria hope to have Nwankwo Kanu and John Obi Mikel back in their side for Saturday’s match after illness red them out last weekend.

Burkina Faso have had a dream start under new Portuguese coach Paulo Duarte, including an away win in their opening match against Tunisia.

The Tunisia have recovered to win two successive games and now host Burundi on Sunday seeking to move to nine points. It is the final match in charge for coach Roger Lemerre, who takes over at Morocco next month. His successor Humberto Coelho will watch the game, breaking away from his work at EURO-2008 as a television analyst.

Home advantage for Africa heavyweights like Angola, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana and the Moroccans afford them the opportunity to make up for disappointing results last weekend.

After this series of matches, the qualifiers will resume again in September.

The 12 group winners and eight best runners-up advance to the second group phase where the 20 teams are split into five groups of four.