The Kano Pillars Gazette
Squad22 Feb 2027
Ali Abdullahi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kano Pillars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Ahmed Musa falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Mustapha Umar was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
The afternoon belonged to Chiedozie Okorie
A mark of 7.76, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Match20 Feb 2027
Kano Pillars and Ikorodu City take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
No hiding place for Habibu Yakubu
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Habibu Yakubu, and the manager let it.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Ademola Balogun on the point
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ademola Balogun after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Looking ahead22 Feb 2027
Mustapha Jawad goes back to face Bayelsa United
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mustapha Jawad’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Kano Pillars needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A first team debut at 19 for Abdullahi Abdulhamid
Off the academy pitches and into a senior shirt, at 19. The parents in the stand will keep the programme, and so will he.
In brief
- The dugout Abuchi Okeke gets picked when it counts
- The dugout No place in the plan for Zayyad Musa
- Squad Abdullahi Abubakar wants out of the dugout