“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Effimi Nsi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Abia Warriors the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Austin Chinecherem and Abia Warriors agree another 3 years.
Innocent Godwin was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Chukwuemeka Obioma was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Adebayo Nwakali after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Abia Warriors told Innocent Godwin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
7.96, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Abia Warriors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Emmanuel Ogbuagu. 2‑0 against Kun Khalifat, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Adebayo Nwakali could afford to be generous.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Abia Warriors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxwell Kangeshima is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Abia Warriors they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marked 7.60. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 92. El-Kanemi Warriors had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Abia Warriors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Abia Warriors have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Chukwuemeka Obioma and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The phone has started ringing about Effimi Nsi again, and this time the name on the line is Nasarawa United. Abia Warriors are listening politely and promising nothing.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Calvin Babatunde is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Abia Warriors, and it is not being withdrawn.
The name of Bright Sunday has come up in conversations Abia Warriors were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Marked 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Abia Warriors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adebayo Nwakali, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.