Finally, Kano Pillars have successfully defended their Nigerian Premier League title back to back from 2012 despite all the obstacles placed on their path this year (much like the obstacles placed on the path of their home airport, Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, MAKIA). Pillars retained the league title despite losing 2-0 at Lobi Stars on the final day of the season, as they finished top of the table on 63 points. This is Pillars third league championship – having won their first league title in 2008 – and the trophy is theirs to keep. Kano Pillars (the Hausa epithet of whom is MASU GIDA or HOME LORDS, their slogan being SAI MASU GIDA! or HOME LORDS SHALL WIN!) have won, alongside the trophy, the prize money of Ten Million Naira (N10,000). They have now gone into the record books as the first team from the Northern part of the country to win Nigeria league thrice (2008, 2012 and 2013), and back to back 2012 and 2103. The only other Northern teams to have won the Nigerian League were Mighty Jets in 1972, BCC Lions in 1994 and Lobi Stars in 1999. In this year’s race, Enyimba of Aba shot to second place at 62 points while Bayelsa United sneaked in third place with 61 points and El-Kanemi Warriors (despite the emotional turmoil of their Borno home) came fourth on 60 points. With this final table, Pillars, along with Enyimba, will represent Nigeria in next year’s CAF Champions League. At the other end of the table, three Northern clubs (Wikki of Bauchi and Kwara United and ABS FC both of Ilorin) join Shooting Stars of Ibadan to the lower league. It was double tragedy for Kwara State football fans as both teams from the state will campaign in the lower division next season following their relegation (which reminds football commentators of the fortunes of the two English teams from the medium-sized English town of Sheffield – United and Wednesday – that have not, by their simple existence, made their town any better for it in football). During this year’s campaign, Pillars had been banished to Lokoja, had some of their points awarded to opponents (although overturned on appeal) and generally mistreated to ensure they did not lift the trophy. Most of the misdemeanours Pillars were accused of were also perpetrated by other clubs – yet the other went scot-free, or had only a pat on the wrist. Despite all that, Kano Pillars triumphed. Kano Pillars, who play at the Sani Abacha Stadium at Kofar Mata and the Kano Pillars Stadium in Sabongari, both in Kano, was founded in 1990, the year professional league was started in Nigeria. An amalgamation of three amateur clubs (WRECA FC, Kano Golden Stars FC and Bank of the North FC), Kano Pillars achieved outstanding success by winning the 2007/2008 Nigerian Premier League, and went on to reach the semifinals of the African Champions League in 2009, having eliminated giants such as Al Ahly of Cairo, Egypt. Kano Pillars has produced outstanding, world-class players such as Ahmed Musa, Sani Kaita (he of the Red Card), Ahmed Garba ‘Yaro Yaro’ and Abiodun Baruwa. But alas! Many people’s unflinching, fanatical, fundamental and enthusiastic support for the Nigerian domestic league is not shared by those who should. For example, even in the home of this very writer, the boys continue to ask “Kano Who?” whenever he talks so avidly of Kano Pillars; and they easily get bored when taken to watch some of Pillars’ home matches. They would rather support Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea and Madrid. Back in 2009, this Column complained bitterly about our young people’s attitude towards domestic football, as well as all other things patriotic. The headline “Embittered Man Utd Fan Kills Four Barca Supporters in Rivers” underscored that complaint. The story, as carried in many newspapers, had it that an embittered Manchester United fan ran over a group of jubilating Barcelona supporters with a van and killed four on the spot, just because Barcelona had defeated Man U. The other story was from Kogi State where “Young Man Kills Sister Over TV Football”. It was said a son ‘mistakenly’ killed his sister by hitting her on the head with a blunt object because she refused to surrender the television remote control for him to watch Chelsea, when she wanted to watch something else. A struggle had ensued and he hit her with a club to her head, ‘mistakenly’. Many readers had enthusiastically responded to that lament, with someone saying a geography student didn’t know where Rivers Niger and Benue confluenced, but could list line-ups of most European clubs; another said the NTA had that very night delayed its Newsline for a European Champions League match; another said his six-year old son jettisoned homework for football, and even innocently analysed the match and the players to the not-so-bemused father who drove him back to his homework and switched off the TV. Why, we had asked. Someone mentioned that refuge in European leagues is not for lack of patrotism, but lack of alternative. That there is thuggery at our match venues; that we have hard and unfriendly pitches; that there is low standard of officiating (responsible for almost one hundred percent home-wins for home teams, except for home teams that cannot ‘take care’ of the officials); that local and even government prefer coverage of the foreign leagues to ours; etc. Another rubbed it in by saying ‘Look how the European players always come out looking as if freshly scrubbed and brand new. We must work on our own football. Sometimes the changes required are not much. Better pitches, for example, will go a long way. Our football is another indicator of our failure.’ And then there is the corruption in the Nigerian football scene. Didn’t Nigeria recently etch its name in football’s hall of infamy again? Back in the middle of this year, two football clubs in the amateur league recorded scandalous results that set tongues wagging in the football world. Plateau United Feeders defeated Akurba FC by 79 goals to nil while Police Machine FC trounced Bubayero FC by 67 goals to nil. Both matches were played simultaneously, as the winner with a better goal difference would have qualified for the Amateur National League Division III. The big irony is that both games were played simultaneously precisely to avoid match-fixing. And this was not the first time Nigerian football has gone down this road of infamy. On August 12, 2006 in a game involving Akwa United and Calabar Rovers, United won 13-0. Rovers, knowing they were doomed to relegation, sold out to United which aided Akwa United to gain promotion instead of Bussdor Football Club. (It helped that Rovers had three players sent off during the match to facilitate the massacre.) In the aftermath of that fiasco, though Calabar Rovers was disbanded, an investigating panel intriguingly said it did not find anything wrong with that result, and Akwa United continued to play. There is no field of endeavour that has united the citizens of this country and at the same time brought it international glory and recognition to the nation like the game of football. Isn’t it a shame that the leadership of Nigerian football has allowed the vices that have crippled almost every other sector of the economy to creep into its activities? What of the football administrator who was banned by FIFA for demanding bribes? Where are Keshi’s salaries for seven months? What of the deadly struggle for estacode at the Glass House? Kano Pillars have won despite all odds. Let us support its 2014 African Champions League Campaign. Up Kano Pillars!
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 13:44:59 +0000
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