My jaw fell to the floor on August 16, 2025 when the news of the passing of Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim hit the airwaves. Fortunately for me, I was not anywhere close to an abattoir because a jet-load of green flies would have taken refuge in my mouth!
I got to know Alhaji Isyaku way back in the early 70s when I joined The Nigeria Standard Newspaper as a pioneer staff with the mandate to set up its sports desk. The mighty Jets Football Club of Jos, one of the finest soccer outfits to fly out of Nigeria’s football womb, was already making waves in the country prior to my emergence in the Tin City, becoming the first club to win the National Football League Trophy in 1971. That was before the league was categorised into Divisions One, Two and Three in 1978 or thereabouts.
It was the first Military Governor of defunct Benue-Plateau state, Police Commissioner Joseph Dechi Gomwalk that conceived the idea of forming a football club for the state and got his good friend, Alhaji Isyaku, to midwife it. The ebullient philanthropist became its pioneer chairman. The name, Mighty Jets, must have sprung up from Isyaku’s possession of a private jet. He was one of the few successful international business moguls to own one, the first being Barr. Godfrey Jaja Amachree, an indigene of Kalabari in the present-day Rivers state.
The last time I had an engagement with the deceased was at his Asokoro residence in Abuja. That was more than 15 years ago. It was my good friend and professional colleague, Emma Bello, who took me to his house. He was then the Editor of Sunday Leadership Newspaper while I was an external member of the Group’s Editorial Board.
It was a happy reunion with the football administrator. We relived the good old days of the Mighty Jets and took a roll call of the players who had deplaned and the ones that were still alive. By then, a handful of them had answered their final summons. First to disemplane was Sam Garba Okoye, arguably one of the best attacking midfielders of his generation. Sam Garba, as he was fondly called by his teeming admirers, died in July 1978 in a car crash while on an official engagement in Lafia. He was the principal football coach with the old Plateau State Sports Council. Sam made his honorary adviser. At a point, l assured him that given his rising profile, he would end up as the head coach of the Green Eagles. He had starred for the team as far back as 1968 during the Mexico Olympics under the late Chief Coach Teslim Thunder Balogun
As at today, almost all the players that pioneered the Jets some 55 years ago have flown to the great beyond. Field Marshal Ismaila Mabo, who was the pioneer captain, passed on about two years ago while he was the chairman of the Plateau State Sports Council. I was a member. Players that disemplaned before Mabo included diminutive penalty expert Sule Kekere, Layi Olagbemiro, and three of the (four) fantastic Atuegbu brothers, Matthew, Aloysius and Nicholas. Andrew is the last of the Mohicans presently residing in the United States.
Others include Uba Junior who paired with Mabo in the central defence. Their partnership was as formidable as the one formed by Arsenal’s William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes in the English Premier League. Goalkeeper Lawandi Datti, Batande Ali, Ali Lime, Nda Liman, and Kunle Awesu have all deplaned. Winger Babalola Olugbodi and Bayo Adenuga, I believe, are still on the plane. The latter has been in touch with me until lately.
Alhaji Isyaku’s death shocked me as much as that of Sam Garba. I had just checked into my hotel room in Lagos, set to shake off the jet lag from Algiers where I went to cover the 3rd All-Africa Games. I was heading for the loo when the sad news was announced on the radio. I froze in my tracks and the urine ceased. Sam Garba died young; he was in his early 30s… a handsome dude and ladies were always all over him like rashes. It was not easy to fend them off. Nevertheless, he dribbled his way through during his playing career.
From my conversation with Alhaji Isyaku, he was still keeping tabs on his pioneer warriors. One could only imagine his pains whenever he learnt that any of his illustrious boys had passed. For all of them that have passed, I wrote tributes, extolling their contributions to the growth and development of football in Plateau in particular and the country in general.
Even the pioneer executive members of the club have all passed except my good friend, Alhaji Idris Loko, who was the club secretary and presently the Secretary of the Nasarawa Emirate Council. The Team Manager, who later became Sports Minister under Shagari, Alhaji Buba Ahmed, deplaned a little more than a year ago. Buba’s death also hit me hard. He was likeable and humble.
Alhaji Isyaku did not take his hands off the plough long after Gomwalk exited the scene in 1975 after the overthrow of the Gowon regime and his subsequent execution by a firing squad having been implicated in the coup that eliminated Gen. Murtala Mohammed in 1976, even though he protested his innocence.
Besides engaging a Brazilian coach, Samuel Lopez, to handle the team, the munificent Isyaku sponsored three of the players, skipper Ismaila Mabo, Sam Garba and Mathew Atuegbu, to Brazil to train as coaches upon getting to the zenith of their football career. Of the trio, Mabo was a successful gaffer at the national level as evidenced by his exploits with the Super Falcons both within and outside the continent. Alhaji Isyaku must have been proud of him.
Though successful as a businessman and politician, Alhaji Isyaku must have died unfulfilled in his football dreams for the club. Besides winning the National Football League title, the Jets struggled over the years to add the prestigious Challenge Cup to their silverwares. The exponents of football appeared in as many as 10 finals but lost in all. The jinx earned them the sobriquet: Throne Seers or Soroye in Yoruba. A rare opportunity came their way in the 1972 final against Bendel Insurance FC of Benin. Soccer fans of that era must be quick to recall the epic final whenever Mighty Jets FC is mentioned. The Onikan Stadium, Lagos, venue of the titanic clash was bursting at the seams. Alhaji Isyaku was present along with Governor Gomwalk and his friend, Col Samuel Ogbemudia of the Mid-West State.
Proceedings dragged to the dying minutes with the Insurers holding on to a 2 – 0 lead. Then, Sam Garba, the magician struck. He produced the most stunning comeback in the history of the competition and obliterated the two goals within a spate of five minutes. Many supporters of the Insurers had already trooped out of the stadium, chanting victory songs and mocking the Soroye from Jos. When Sam pulled a goal back, the ovation that rang out of the throats of the supporters of the Soroye rocked the stadium to its foundation. The Bendel supporters outside the stadium gyrated energetically like catfish, thinking the final nail was being driven into the coffin of the serial finalists from Jos. Then, the unthinkable happened. FIFA-badged centre referee Sunny Badru already had the whistle between his lips to breathe air into it for the final whistle when Sam Garba restored parity. Incredible! The whistle froze in Badrus’ mouth; his eyes popped out in disbelief. And that was the drama that retired him from the whistle vocation. A replay was ordered for Ibadan at the Liberty Stadium a week later. Psychologically down, the Jos lads were expected to deliver the killer blow on the insurers… still reeling in shock. Curiously, and from nowhere, Nigeria’s conjoined twins, tribalism and ethnicity, crept in the team. Each of the three major tribes in the squad saw victory as a foregone conclusion and struggled to claim it. That stupidity sounded their death knell.
It is gratifying to note that the club is still flying, about 55 years on despite flying through all manner of storms, and currently playing in the lower league. The greatest honour to bestow on the Wamba-born soccer icon is to rename the club after him. Something like Isyaku Ibrahim Jets FC of Jos will not be a bad idea. The retention of Jets in the name should massage the ego of its fanatical supporters who have been condemned to “Up Jets” for life.
May Allah grant his soul Aljannah Firdaus, as well as his family and the Nigerian football confraternity the fortitude to bear the painful loss.