By Chidera Akalonu
One club that can easily pass for a true professional club today in the country is Abia Warriors FC of Umuahia.
Activities at the club’s secretariat where club chairman Emeka Inyama and his team hold sway can attest to this.
Modest but professional. That sums up the managerial acumen of Inyama, pioneer chairman of the Nigeria National league, former NFF executive committee member and incumbent chairman of Abia Warriors football club of Umuahia, Abia state.
A visit to the club’s secretariat, just a stone throw away from the Umuahia Township Stadium, reveals a group of individuals that understand the business of club management with little or no faults.
“Yes we are a state owned team but, we don’t depend solely on government sponsorship to survive. Abia Warriors belong to the people. We are a community club and we make our monies through gate takings and other avenues, which have remained our best kept secret till date,” Inyama said laughing.
What was supposed to be a private discussion soon became a pleasant interview session. The High Chief, sitting in the comfort of his exotic office spoke with the confidence of a man blessed with comfort and spurred by the grace of God.
He started by asking if I have seen an office belonging to any club chairman in Nigeria that is better equipped than his. While I struggled to provide an answer, he retorted with yet another boast. “ We are not rich, but we pride ourselves as one club with rich administrative acumen. We run our office like a proper corporate organisation where everyone have his or her responsibilities. We don’t owe our players or staff and our players are among the best paid in the country today. We have five players here whose wages when put together amounts to over N3m if not more per month. Now you wonder how we are able to meet up our obligations to these players and I insist, it is one of our best kept secrets”.
A visit to the Umuahia Township Stadium would leave a first time visitor asking questions bothering on maintainance but a closer look and a visit to the new stadium site just behind the present edifice will give one the conviction, that the people are not sleeping, men are seriously at work, seeking ways at making the club standout as a truly professional outfit in all ramifications.
The Abia Warriors team bus is another major worry but the club chairman said it is on the priority list and that in the next few months, the players will celebrate a brand new 32-seater bus to take care of all away matches, while the present bus would be donated to the supporters club which is daily expanding with thousands of new members.
Just two seasons ago, Abia Warriors made megabucks with the transfer of striker Chisom Chikatara who moved to Wydad Casablanca of Morocco . “That deal alone, brought Abia Warriors to international limelight and set the searchlight on us as one of Nigeria’s talent haven,” Inyama said. 
“We are a club that believes in only the best, we pride ourselves as the ideal football enterprise with the sole aim of grooming exceptional super talents and exporting them to other clubs around the world. Just recently, one of our immensely talented players went on loan to Vietnam. Reports from his Vietnamese club is encouraging and we are building on that to look at other possibilities. Remember Paul Onobi? Yea the same Onobi that displaced Mikel Obi from the Super Eagles midfield under Sunday Oliseh. He went for greener pastures abroad but has since joined Abia Warriors a club that offers you something very close to what you get in Europe.
Our profile was dwarfed by the exploits of Enyimba of Aba the other state owned club. As you know, Enyimba till date, remains the pride of Abia state and Nigeria in general. No Nigerian team has been able to match the records set by Enyimba who won the CAF champions league back to back in 2003 and 2004. That performance is our motivation. Daily we are challenged to do even more because so much is expected of us.
The government and people of Abia state have been very supportive and we have promised not to let them down. Our dream as a club is to secure a title sponsor, get the club listed in the stock exchange market and create one of the biggest fan base for Abia Warriors across the length and breath of Africa.
We also want to promote the brand across Africa, Europe and the America’s. We want our players to dominate call ups to the national teams and we also want to have the best academy in Africa from where youth talents can move straight to the main team or sold to top European club sides. If Ezekiel Bassey can move straight from Enyimba to Barcelona of Spain, why can’t a player of Abia Warriors do same? We don’t want to be seen as just another Nigerian club side, we want to make a difference and that difference starts from this office, this office where I sit is where we will begin our journey to the very top.”
“Just on Monday, we signed an American trained football fitness trainer who can also double as a dietician, physiotherapist and psychologist to the team, we are looking at sending our first team coach for a refresher course abroad not forgetting too, the possibilities of arranging friendly games for our team against top African and European club sides.
We hope that at the end of the season, we can crown these efforts with results on the field of play. We also hope that we can surprise our fans with a continental ticket as our own little way of saying thanks for all the years of painstaking support. We truly appreciate all our fans.”
Abia Warriors have continued to raise their profile with yet another 2-0 home win against visiting ABS of Ilorin in a Week 17 NPFL match decided last week in Umuahia.