The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) on Tuesday night served a piece of news that ended my day on a sad note. When the news filtered out, I thought I heard Uba Ahmed. I tilted my head towards my television set, wondering who was the namesake of the flamboyant onetime Bauchi state-born Secretary of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic that had just passed on. It was when I heard “the former Sports Minister” that I knew it was my light-skinned friend and brother, Alhaji Buba Ahmed.
For a long moment, I found my jaw literally on the floor… long enough for an arsenal of flies to take refuge in my mouth had the shocking news met me at an abattoir. I left what I was doing and leaned back on the sofa. My mind raced back to the mid-70s when football brought the two of us together. He was the Team Manager of the famous Mighty Jets of Jos.
The first Military Governor of Benue-Plateau sate, Police Commissioner Joseph Gomwalk, was instrumental to the formation of the club. Its pioneer Chairman was Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim, an iconic international business mogul. The Mighty Jets FC was the darling of many soccer fans within and outside Plateau. An exponent of method, the Jets morphed from the famous Plateau Highlanders that produced great players like the late Teslim “Thunder” Balogun. Balogun got the “Thunder” moniker because of the immense power behind his shots.
A story is told that the world football governing body, the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), forbade “Thunder” from striking inside the penalty box so that his shots would not kill the goalkeepers!
When I was sucked out of the New Nigerian Newspapers by The Nigeria Standard Newspapers to set up the sports desk, I was persuaded to join the Mighty Jets by the late Layi Olagbemiro, a pioneer player and my good friend. Sam Garba and Ismaila Mabo, both of blessed memory, lent their voices but I explained to them that my plate was too full to accommodate their demand. However, I gave the club maximum media coverage as the leading club in the state. It was the best I could do for the Mighty Jets rather than kicking the ball around with the club.
Alhaji Buba Ahmed became close. As the Team Manager of the club, he was always on ground, piloting its affairs, assisted by the Secretary, Alhaji Idris Mohammed Loko and other officials. Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim, a busy man, was rarely available.
A couple of years into the existence of The Nigeria Standard, the media outfit formed a football club known as the Pen Powers. The idea came up after I was mandated, as a member of the Plateau State Sports Council, to undertake a tour of Enugu, Ibadan, Lagos and Benin with a view to replicating the Rangers International FC, Stationery Stores, Bendel Insurance and IICC Shooting Stars in the state. All those clubs were either privately run or owned by government parastatals.
I returned from the tour and submitted my report. A couple of months later, my recommendations gave birth to the Pen Powers. Other establishments caught the fever. Among them were the Jos Metropolitan Development Board FC, the Industrial Training Fund FC and the Customs FC. There was the Octopus FC, Rukuba, near Jos, owned by the Third Armoured Division of the Nigerian Army. They all provided healthy football competitions in the state.
However, the Pen Powers under my watch as the pioneer chairman posed a tough challenge to the Mighty Jets. Their dominance came under threat in 1978 and we won the state FA Cup in 1979. All hell was let loose by the fanatical supporters of the Mighty Jets. I became the main enemy and target of the supporters who were hitherto my friends because I raised a club that challenged their monopoly and gave them sleepless nights.
But Alhaji Buba Ahmed and Idris Mohammed Loko showed maturity in the belief that the club needed competitions to keep it on its toes. The duo did not allow my chairmanship of the Pen Powers to affect our relationship. But the Jets’ fans did not find it funny. As far as most of them were concerned, the two key officials ought to have avoided anything to do with the Pen Powers like a plague.
While Alhaji Ahmed was in the private sector like the chairman of the club, Idris Mohammed Loko was a staff of the NTA, Jos. So, outside the soccer arena, Idris and I were professional colleagues. The duo were instrumental to the howling successes recorded by the Mighty Jets in the early and mid-70s.
While I ran the affairs of the Pen Powers till the early 80s (five years in all), Alhaji Ahmed exited the Jets long before my leadership of the Pen Powers ended. But we maintained our relationship, more so that he was a younger sibling of my good friend and brother, the late Emir of Nasarawa, Alhaji Hassan Ahmed II. Interestingly, Alhaji Idris Mohammed was made the Secretary of the Nasarawa Emirate, first under Emir Abubakar Ramalan and later Hassan Ahmed II. He is still very much on the ground.
I was a regular caller at the Emir’s Palace in Nasarawa. It was a happy reunion for Alhaji Buba Ahmed, Alhaji Idris Loko and I in 2014 or thereabout when the late Hassan Ahmed celebrated an occasion in the Palace. Alhaji Buba Ahmed and I spent some time catching up. We recalled the good old days in Jos and what had become of Nigerian football over time.
We also reminisced on his tenure as the first civilian Sports Minister during the Shagari administration. The nation was denied the opportunity of getting the best out of him, following the overthrow of the regime of President Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983. It was under his watch that Nigeria’s Flying Eagles made it to the FIFA World Cup Finals in 1983 for the very first time.
The late Buba Ahmed made one lasting impression on me. I was invited by Prof. O. A. Fatile, the Head of Department of Physical and Health Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, to attend the 1983 NUGA Games held at the Main Campus, Samaru, Zaria, as a special guest. Even though I had exited the sports desk long before then, the department recognised my contributions to sports and as the 1982 recipient of the department’s award as the Best Sports Editor in Nigeria. For many years in the late 70s and early 80s, the Department ensured that cuttings of my weekly sports column, Saturday Commentary, published in The Nigeria Standard, were pinned to its notice board.
Alhaji Buba Ahmed, who was representing the President at the closing ceremony, was seated among dignitaries at the VIP stand when I went over to exchange pleasantries with him. And he did the unthinkable. He came down from his seat and squatted as I did. Everyone on the stand looked in our direction, wondering who I was for the Minister to come down to my level. It a the high point of humility. Many big men struck by the hubris syndrome would have casually received me with a feeble handshake or even ignored me.
It is hard for me to come to terms with Alhaji Buba Ahmed’s passing. It was the same way I felt in November, 2018 when his brother, the late Emir of Nasarawa, Alhaji Hassan Ahmed II, joined his ancestors.
Alhaji Buba Ahmed passed on in Kano where he chose to live the rest of his life, aged 81. He was an affable and a likeable man and had his ever-smiling face as a trademark.
May Allah grant his soul Aljannah Firdaus and his family, friends and associates the fortitude to cope with his irreparable exit.
