Supporters of the El-Kanemi Warriors FC have watched the travails of the club with heavy hearts over the last many years. At the onset, let me confess that I counted myself as one of their keen supporters having been there at their birth in 1986 and was at the ringside watching their speedy rise in the national football trajectory culminating in their taking the Challenge Cup (now named the President Federation Cup) in 1991 when they defeated Kano Pillars FC 3-2 in the final.
It was a brazen act for such a young team, for on its journey to clinching the Challenge Cup it disposed of reigning kings of the time, such as Enugu Rangers, Shooting Stars of Ibadan (3SC), Ranchers Bees of Kaduna, Abiola Babes, BCC Lions of Makurdi, etc. Some of the clubs, like Shooting Stars and Abiola Babes, have started to feel entitled to the Challenge Cup due, perhaps, to their pedigree and the vast resources at their disposal.
To their eternal chagrin, the El-Kanemi Warriors won the cup again the following year, 1992, after seeing off Stationery Stores 1-0 at a thrilling final. It was a back-to-back win for the Warriors which stamped their achievement indelibly in the footballing annals of the country.
Thereafter, things just went awry for the Warriors. Successive military governments from the mid-1990s upwards struggled to live up to providing the wherewithal needed to keep the Warriors competitive among their peers. Unfortunately, no silverware came their way again. I continued to keep an eye on developments and year after year it was one disappointment or the other. In the millennium years morale in the team went down to the lowest ebb. They suffered relegation to the 2nd Division in 2007 and languished there for years before returning to the top flight.
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In the more recent years, the Boko Haram scourge almost brought the club to its knees. Their benefactor, the Borno State Government was preoccupied with dealing with the attendant consequences of the insurgency and could not adequately support the club. As the insurgency took grip of Maiduguri the Warriors found that they could not even play their home matches among their faithful Maiduguri supporters in the El-Kanemi Warriors Stadium. They were relocated to Sani Abatcha Stadium in Kano and in later years, to Mohammadu Dikko Stadium in Katsina.
The worst was to come last year when they suffered another relegation in the NFPL. As resilient as they were and added up to focused management by the Borno State Government, the Warriors bounced back to the first flight again and went all the way to victory in the tussle for the President Federation Cup. To add another feather to their cap, this victory now enables the club to be one of the two that will represent Nigeria in the Confederation Cup, the continental competition run by CAF.
The pedigree of El-Kanemi Warriors FC goes a long way back to the mid-1980s. The club was founded by Col Abdulmumini Aminu, Borno State Military Governor 1985-88. Aminu had been passionately involved with sports and in particular had an encyclopedic knowledge of football matters. As he arrived in Maiduguri, he made the development of football his top priority. He assembled some of the best players (Samson Siasia, Manu Garba, Nduka Ogbade etc) and coaching staff (Sebastian Brodrick, later Shaibu Amodu) in Nigeria, offering them mouth-watering signing fees, and giving each one of them new vehicles and keys to houses in the GRA. He also got Garba Ubaliyo a young man, equally football-passionate like him, as the team manager.
He also set about building a mini-stadium for the club in Mafoni within the Maiduguri Race Course, now Ramat Square. In a few months, the club was registered and immediately started making waves in the football community. Soon Maiduguri Government House became a centre of attraction for all top football players and coaches. They had easy access to the governor. Even those of us who were his close aides used to be envious of the players’ easy access to the governor. Whenever state duties allowed, Aminu spent quality time with the Warriors in their homes or the stadium watching them practice or play a match.
Whenever they won a match there were celebrations in the government house. When the Warriors suffered a defeat, a pall descended on the government house. The governor’s appointments were cancelled, meetings were postponed and commissioners and aides kept their distance as he was likely to be grumpy.
Fortunately, the immediate governors after the tenure of Aminu kept faith in the Warriors’ vision. Col Abdu One Mohammed who succeeded Aminu had a grand vision of building a standard stadium for the Warriors. Unfortunately, he had a very short tenure of barely 16 months. The stadium he began in 1989 is still lying abandoned and uncompleted opposite Kano Motor Park to the eternal discomfiture of all the succeeding governments of the state.
Now that the Warriors are back to reckoning, what next? They have an arduous task ahead, to keep winning both in the national and continental competitions. I hope the Borno State Government will not relent in its full support. As for the support of fans, the Warriors would always have plenty.
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