The man who gave up his throne to play for Nigeria
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- Written by -ODEGBAMI ON SATURDAY
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The year is 1978. I am in Accra Ghana. I am a part of the national team of Nigeria. The Green Eagles are in town to defend their third place achievement in the 1976 Dire Dawa African Cup of Nations where Nigeria established itself as a genuine rising football power in Africa where, for the first time in the history of the country the national team got within touching distance of Africa’s most prestigious football trophy. Nigeria had come away with three individual trophies - the best right-winger (Baba Otu Mohammed), best left-winger (Kunle Awesu) and most valuable player (Mudashiru Babatunde Lawal) of the tournament. It was the start of Nigeria’s most glorious era, up to that point.
So, we are in Ghana to defend, and possibly rise above, our exalted third place position. Between 1976 and our arrival in Ghana we have qualified for the football event of the Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada; won the Africa Cup-Winners Cup twice through Shooting Stars FC and Rangers International FC in 1976 and 1977 respectively; come close to our greatest moment in football, by getting to the very last match to qualify for the 1978 World Cup and losing at home to Tunisia in a game that will remain indelible in our football history for its sheer drama! In that crucial match in 1977 several things went wrong the gravest of which is that we lost the home-match through an own goal scored from a deflected header by Godwin Odiye, Nigeria’s most consistent and reliable defender at the time. So, coming to Ghana we arrive with an awesome reputation prepared to take on the rest and the best of Africa with confidence. The list of our players is long, and their ‘credentials’ impressive - ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu, ‘Chief Justice’ Adokie Amiesimaka, ‘Owoblow” Felix Owolabi, ‘Blockbuster’ Alloysius Atuegbu, Mudashiru Babatunde Tiamiyu Lawal, and the ‘Mohammed fraternity’ - Baba Otu Mohammed, Sani Mohammed, Shefiu Mohammed, and Annas Ahmed.Incidentally all of them had come into Nigeria from Ghana in the mass exodus that took place in the early 1970s when the harsh economic and political climate in Ghana forced several of Ghana’s best players to migrate in droves to neighbouring Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire. For some of the players the similarity of their names with Nigerian names, plus the close cultural ties between the peoples of both countries, sometimes made it difficult to determine their true nationality. That’s how and why many Ghanaian players and Nigerians born in Ghana found their way into Nigeria’s national football team. All those that could speak a Nigerian language, particularly Hausa, as in the case of the Mohammeds, and were considered exceptionally good players, had an easy ride into the Green Eagles.
The Mohammeds are all with us in Accra. This morning we return from training and meet a crowd clad in colourful Ghanaian traditional costumes at the lobby of the hotel where we are camped. The audience is beating drums and singing in one of the local Ghanaian dialects. We wonder what is going on. Our convoy of players marches through the lounge. We notice a slight commotion as soon as one of us is sighted. The dancing and singing become frenetic. Through their different costumes I can make out the traditional chiefs, the cultural dancers and singers, the priests and an accompanying public. A traditional ceremony of some sort is taking place. The group gravitates towards one of the players behind me. I turn and watch. He stands transfixed as if in a trance. The crowd throws a native costume around his shoulder in a drape. They wrap some native colourful loincloth around his waist. He starts to sway and move his feet from side to side, slowly at first to the music, and then, faster and faster as the tempo increases. Before long he is surrounded by gyrating native lads and lasses. A beaded crown appears from somewhere in the canopy of people. They place it upon his head. This is a ceremony reserved for coronations. Is Annas Ahmed a king?
It is an incredible sight. It is beautiful to watch even in my incomprehension. The entire Green Eagles team stand around as spectators to this unscripted unfolding drama, bemused. One of us, an ‘ordinary’ player in the national team of Nigeria, Annas Ahmed, is being crowned king by his people! It takes a few minutes but we finally get to understand what is going on. Annas is the first son to the late King of his clan somewhere to the north of Ghana. At the death of his father, according to their tradition, as the first son, he automatically is expected to succeed his father and mount the throne. Annas’s clan had sent word and emissaries to him in Nigeria to return to Ghana and to take up the responsibility when he father died. But Annas had concluded the burial rites and returned to Nigeria where he was doing well for himself as a huge national football star playing for Raccah Rovers FC of Kano and also for the Green Eagles of Nigeria. So, he had quietly turned down all entreaties to return home.
Then came the Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana. The Nigerian football authorities assume he is a Nigerian because he carries a Nigerian passport. Annas is expected to represent Nigeria against his own country. Now this - not only is he a full-blooded Ghanaian, he is a KING of his people in Ghana! His surname has been his shield, like that of so many others - Orlando John, Yakubu Mambo, Baba Alli, Mohammed Lawal, Sani Mohammed, and so on. This beautiful day in Accra, Annas Ahmed inadvertently loses the game of his true identity. No one has ever doubted his commitment and loyalty to Nigeria, but to witness his ‘coronation’ the way we are doing marks an end to an old relationship and the start of a new one with Nigerian football.
And the man died
I do not recall if Annas ever played again for Nigeria’s national team after that episode in Ghana. I know he returned with us to Nigeria, to his adopted State of Kano and to his team, the Raccah Rovers FC. He never went back to Ghana to assume his place as King of his people. He married a Nigeria girl from Abeokuta, and they settled down in the city of Kano. He was left out of Nigeria’s winning 1980 Africa Cup of Nations team and so lost the opportunity to be awarded a Nigerian national honour and to be given a flat in Lagos, amongst many other gifts that came.
It is probably the pain of this disappointment that affected him the most because he retired from the game and disappeared completely from the radar of Nigerian football even though he never left the football-crazy city of Kano. None of his contemporaries saw him for years. Meanwhile, he had met a Lebanese gentleman who found his carpentry skills irresistible and employed him to take care of all the wood work in his hotel in Kano. He was given a free flat where he lived in absolute quietude with his wife and children. A few years after his marriage disaster struck. An unknown ailment hit his wife and she has been confined to a wheel chair since then.
For years only very few people knew where he lived in Kano. It took me two visits to the ancient city and the help of Shefiu Mohammed who would not give up trying to track him down three years ago. I found out he still loved his football with a passion even if the work he did never allowed him the luxury of even watching any football on television. On the meagre salary that he earned (I am ashamed to put it down here) he was only scratching a living for decades.
I met with him and invited him to Lagos. He took a day off work and traveled through the night to meet up with me in Lagos. He was taken to the International Academy where I am Chairman of the Governing Council in Wasimi. I offered him the opportunity to leave Kano and come work with young children in the football academy, transferring his incredible skills to them and getting back into his first love, football, the game that made him give up his throne! I also offered him the opportunity to start a furniture workshop in Wasimi and to bring his wife closer to her people and parents in Abeokuta where better care would be available. He fell seriously in love with the serenity of the Wasimi environment and my proposal. We started immediately to invest in some working carpentry tools. He returned to Kano the same night and promised to return in one week. He never did. The city of Kano, I believe, is too alluring and his fear of the unknown too strong. He stayed back. the only time I heard from him again he told me he had changed his mind about moving down south. That was three years ago.
Last Wednesday, his wife called me. She introduced herself and gave the news to me without any ceremony or niceties: ‘My husband, your friend, Annas, died this morning’.
My heart sank. No, not another one! the death of three ex-international footballers in the space of the first month into 2011 is too much for anyone to bear.
Annas Ahmed was a great ambassador of football and of Nigeria. Even as a Ghanaian he wore the Green and White of Nigeria with pride and dignity! Annas loved Nigeria so much he gave up his throne and the opportunity of a better life in Ghana. As a football player I remember him for his extravagant skills, his elegant movement with the ball and his long accurate passes. He was a great centre-half who loved to romance and cuddle the ball at his feet like a woman. He was a great showman, an artist and a genuine product of the exquisiteness of the original Ghanaian football traditions. This is my little tribute to this great man! Adieus.
Articles
The man who gave up his throne to play for Nigeria
Category: Sports Written by -ODEGBAMI ON SATURDAY Hits: 1087
The year is 1978. I am in Accra Ghana. I am a part of the national team of Nigeria. The Green Eagles are in town to defend their third place achievement in the 1976 Dire Dawa African Cup of Nations where Nigeria established itself as a genuine rising football power in Africa where, for the first time in the history of the country the national team got within touching distance of Africa’s most prestigious football trophy. Nigeria had come away with three individual trophies - the best right-winger (Baba Otu Mohammed), best left-winger (Kunle Awesu) and most valuable player (Mudashiru Babatunde Lawal) of the tournament. It was the start of Nigeria’s most glorious era, up to that point.
So, we are in Ghana to defend, and possibly rise above, our exalted third place position. Between 1976 and our arrival in Ghana we have qualified for the football event of the Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada; won the Africa Cup-Winners Cup twice through Shooting Stars FC and Rangers International FC in 1976 and 1977 respectively; come close to our greatest moment in football, by getting to the very last match to qualify for the 1978 World Cup and losing at home to Tunisia in a game that will remain indelible in our football history for its sheer drama! In that crucial match in 1977 several things went wrong the gravest of which is that we lost the home-match through an own goal scored from a deflected header by Godwin Odiye, Nigeria’s most consistent and reliable defender at the time. So, coming to Ghana we arrive with an awesome reputation prepared to take on the rest and the best of Africa with confidence. The list of our players is long, and their ‘credentials’ impressive - ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu, ‘Chief Justice’ Adokie Amiesimaka, ‘Owoblow” Felix Owolabi, ‘Blockbuster’ Alloysius Atuegbu, Mudashiru Babatunde Tiamiyu Lawal, and the ‘Mohammed fraternity’ - Baba Otu Mohammed, Sani Mohammed, Shefiu Mohammed, and Annas Ahmed.Incidentally all of them had come into Nigeria from Ghana in the mass exodus that took place in the early 1970s when the harsh economic and political climate in Ghana forced several of Ghana’s best players to migrate in droves to neighbouring Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire. For some of the players the similarity of their names with Nigerian names, plus the close cultural ties between the peoples of both countries, sometimes made it difficult to determine their true nationality. That’s how and why many Ghanaian players and Nigerians born in Ghana found their way into Nigeria’s national football team. All those that could speak a Nigerian language, particularly Hausa, as in the case of the Mohammeds, and were considered exceptionally good players, had an easy ride into the Green Eagles.
The Mohammeds are all with us in Accra. This morning we return from training and meet a crowd clad in colourful Ghanaian traditional costumes at the lobby of the hotel where we are camped. The audience is beating drums and singing in one of the local Ghanaian dialects. We wonder what is going on. Our convoy of players marches through the lounge. We notice a slight commotion as soon as one of us is sighted. The dancing and singing become frenetic. Through their different costumes I can make out the traditional chiefs, the cultural dancers and singers, the priests and an accompanying public. A traditional ceremony of some sort is taking place. The group gravitates towards one of the players behind me. I turn and watch. He stands transfixed as if in a trance. The crowd throws a native costume around his shoulder in a drape. They wrap some native colourful loincloth around his waist. He starts to sway and move his feet from side to side, slowly at first to the music, and then, faster and faster as the tempo increases. Before long he is surrounded by gyrating native lads and lasses. A beaded crown appears from somewhere in the canopy of people. They place it upon his head. This is a ceremony reserved for coronations. Is Annas Ahmed a king?
It is an incredible sight. It is beautiful to watch even in my incomprehension. The entire Green Eagles team stand around as spectators to this unscripted unfolding drama, bemused. One of us, an ‘ordinary’ player in the national team of Nigeria, Annas Ahmed, is being crowned king by his people! It takes a few minutes but we finally get to understand what is going on. Annas is the first son to the late King of his clan somewhere to the north of Ghana. At the death of his father, according to their tradition, as the first son, he automatically is expected to succeed his father and mount the throne. Annas’s clan had sent word and emissaries to him in Nigeria to return to Ghana and to take up the responsibility when he father died. But Annas had concluded the burial rites and returned to Nigeria where he was doing well for himself as a huge national football star playing for Raccah Rovers FC of Kano and also for the Green Eagles of Nigeria. So, he had quietly turned down all entreaties to return home.
Then came the Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana. The Nigerian football authorities assume he is a Nigerian because he carries a Nigerian passport. Annas is expected to represent Nigeria against his own country. Now this - not only is he a full-blooded Ghanaian, he is a KING of his people in Ghana! His surname has been his shield, like that of so many others - Orlando John, Yakubu Mambo, Baba Alli, Mohammed Lawal, Sani Mohammed, and so on. This beautiful day in Accra, Annas Ahmed inadvertently loses the game of his true identity. No one has ever doubted his commitment and loyalty to Nigeria, but to witness his ‘coronation’ the way we are doing marks an end to an old relationship and the start of a new one with Nigerian football.
And the man died
I do not recall if Annas ever played again for Nigeria’s national team after that episode in Ghana. I know he returned with us to Nigeria, to his adopted State of Kano and to his team, the Raccah Rovers FC. He never went back to Ghana to assume his place as King of his people. He married a Nigeria girl from Abeokuta, and they settled down in the city of Kano. He was left out of Nigeria’s winning 1980 Africa Cup of Nations team and so lost the opportunity to be awarded a Nigerian national honour and to be given a flat in Lagos, amongst many other gifts that came.
It is probably the pain of this disappointment that affected him the most because he retired from the game and disappeared completely from the radar of Nigerian football even though he never left the football-crazy city of Kano. None of his contemporaries saw him for years. Meanwhile, he had met a Lebanese gentleman who found his carpentry skills irresistible and employed him to take care of all the wood work in his hotel in Kano. He was given a free flat where he lived in absolute quietude with his wife and children. A few years after his marriage disaster struck. An unknown ailment hit his wife and she has been confined to a wheel chair since then.
For years only very few people knew where he lived in Kano. It took me two visits to the ancient city and the help of Shefiu Mohammed who would not give up trying to track him down three years ago. I found out he still loved his football with a passion even if the work he did never allowed him the luxury of even watching any football on television. On the meagre salary that he earned (I am ashamed to put it down here) he was only scratching a living for decades.
I met with him and invited him to Lagos. He took a day off work and traveled through the night to meet up with me in Lagos. He was taken to the International Academy where I am Chairman of the Governing Council in Wasimi. I offered him the opportunity to leave Kano and come work with young children in the football academy, transferring his incredible skills to them and getting back into his first love, football, the game that made him give up his throne! I also offered him the opportunity to start a furniture workshop in Wasimi and to bring his wife closer to her people and parents in Abeokuta where better care would be available. He fell seriously in love with the serenity of the Wasimi environment and my proposal. We started immediately to invest in some working carpentry tools. He returned to Kano the same night and promised to return in one week. He never did. The city of Kano, I believe, is too alluring and his fear of the unknown too strong. He stayed back. the only time I heard from him again he told me he had changed his mind about moving down south. That was three years ago.
Last Wednesday, his wife called me. She introduced herself and gave the news to me without any ceremony or niceties: ‘My husband, your friend, Annas, died this morning’.
My heart sank. No, not another one! the death of three ex-international footballers in the space of the first month into 2011 is too much for anyone to bear.
Annas Ahmed was a great ambassador of football and of Nigeria. Even as a Ghanaian he wore the Green and White of Nigeria with pride and dignity! Annas loved Nigeria so much he gave up his throne and the opportunity of a better life in Ghana. As a football player I remember him for his extravagant skills, his elegant movement with the ball and his long accurate passes. He was a great centre-half who loved to romance and cuddle the ball at his feet like a woman. He was a great showman, an artist and a genuine product of the exquisiteness of the original Ghanaian football traditions. This is my little tribute to this great man! Adieus.