I HAD planned to share this article with SOCCERTALK readers for some time now. It was written by the famous SEBASTINE OFURUM, legendary sports writer and commentator, in the 1979/80 edition of his annual handbook, “NIGERIAN SOCCER ANNUAL REVIEW,” which sold for a cover price of N1 (ONE NAIRA) at the time.

The handbook was published by Sina Idowu and printed by Jacob and Johnson Press in 1980. Design and artwork was done also by Sina Idowu while the cover picture of the then national team, the Green Eagles, was shot by Tam Fiofori. So much for the credits.

I stumbled on this publication at the house of Col. Gary Usman (rtd) when I visited him some time ago in Lekki, Lagos. Col. Usman is a consumate football aficionado and mobile library. Between him and the peerless Fabio Lanipekun, it will be hard to choose who has the sharpest and deepest memory for Nigerian football history. I may have to set them up against each other on a platform some time soon, very soon. Watch out, readers, it will be very interesting: a clash of veteran football historians.

One other interesting thing about Col. Usman, though, is that he is also a supporter of Liverpool FC of England like me. He doesn’t Walk Alone.

Now, for our subject: Former Nigerian goalkeeper Emmanuel Okala. As you will discover shortly, the famous Goalsfather, Rashidi Yekini of the 1994 Super Eagles Golden Generation fame, may not be Nigeria’s first African Footballer of the Year afterall. Yekini won the award in 1993, but Sebastian Ofurum declares in this 1980 report that Okala had earlier been crowned as Africa’s best in 1978. Read on. You will find my comment at the bottom of the article,

EMMANUEL OKALA – 1978 AFRICA’S FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR

Emmanuel Oguajiofor Okala hit the top of African football when he won the “Footballer of the Year” award for 1978. Formal announcement of Okala’s achievement was made in February 1979. The panel which made the award comprised members of the African Sports Journalists Union, ASJU, acting on behalf of the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa, SCSA, which itself is the supreme sports governing body set up by the Organisation of African Unity, O.A.U. Nigeria’s mass circulation newspaper, the Daily Times hailed Okala as Africa’s Star No. 1 when it came up with the story in its front page. It said:

“And the gentle giant star of Green Eagles and Rangers International of Enugu is the first to win the coveted award just begun by the most competent panel of them all.”

The ASJU special panel met in Lome, Togo in December 1978, and after deliberations, picked Okala as the Footballer of 1978 in Africa. The Daily Times, in bringing the happy news to its readers, published an enlarged portrait of Emmanuel Okala on the front page - a rare event for sportsmen and women. The story was taken up by Tunde Oshuntolu, the paper’s Sports Editor in his column “Talking Sports” of Friday, 16th February 1979 as follows:

“In being announced as “Africa’s Footballer of the Year 1978,” the national team and Rangers of Enugu “keeper Okala has undeniably made history, in more ways than one, indeed.

“Firstly, he is the first Nigerian to win such an accolade. At last the premier award of the continent’s premier sport is in our hands, by Okala the Great!

“Secondly - and this is professionally important to us here - Okala is the first OFFICIAL winner of such an award. Pointedly, this honour of selecting the heroes and heroines of our continent’s sports was bestowed directly and solely on the ASJU by the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa itself in Accra last March. After years of rows (beginning from the 2nd All Africa Games in Lagos in January 1973) N33,000 gold and ivory trophy donated by President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire was finally accepted by the Nations. The SCSA President, Abraham Ordia, and Secretary-General, Jean Claude Ganga formally received the gigantic, yet elegant trophy from the Zairean Ambassador in Ghana. Later, the SCSA formally mandated Africa’s professional sports journalists–the people who must keep closet links with sports–to do the job annually.

“At the-end-of-the-year-session in Lome, Kenya’s wonder-runner, Henry Rono undisputedly clinched the Mobutu Trophy, and the No. 1 Soccer spot went to our very own Okala, who, however, placed fourth in the race for the overall trophy, Okala’s claim to the singular selection indeed from six out of the nine-nation group.

“That is how it went in December 1978 in Lome, the current headquarters of Africa‘s Sportswriters, not in Paris, France, where ‘a group of African Sports journalists overseas’ have dared to do the job of selecting our top footballers these four years past.”

Esbee, as Tunde Oshuntolu is popularly known went to give other accounts which spoke in lucid terms about goalkeeper Okala. Said he:

“Throughout 1976 (and even some 5 years earlier) throughout the continent, any Nigerian squad which included Okala (be it clubside, Rangers International or national outfit, Green Eagles) was beseiged by eager foreign fans asking:

where is that your Okala? Right now nobody dares deny the dedicated efficiency of the colossus between the soccer goalpost. A man of gigantic courage, too. A foundation of hope to his side, King Okala of Nigeria.

Okala’s goalkeeping career started in 1963 when he was twelve years old. He was then at Holy Cross High School, Umuawulu, Akwa. He played in that wing by a stroke of chance in the very first year of his secondary school career. He once told the story like this:

“I was brought into the first eleven to play at the outside left position. I had the height to cope with the other boys who were older and in the upper classes. At some point during our crucial game, our games-master Mr. C .N. Ukpaka, wanted to change our goalkeeper who, in his judgement, was not pulling his weight. I volunteered to play in his position. It was a good chance to use the height advantage which I had over the forward players. From that day the games-master said I was the School’s goalkeeper. It remained so until I left school in 1966.

After secondary school education, Emmanuel Okala went back to his home town, Onitsha, where he was born on 17th May, 1951. He joined the ‘Onitsha Red Devils’, later renamed ‘Ikepeazu Redoubtables’. In 1970, he travelled to Enugu with the team to play against the ‘Enugu Black Rocks’ in a state soccer duel.

It was there that the late Dan Anyiam spotted Okala’s talents as a goalkeeper and quickly selected him for the then East Central State soccer squad called, at the time, ‘The Spartans’.

In 1971, Okala was in the Enugu Rangers contingent that came to Lagos for the Amachree Cup competition. Later, he took over from the regular Rangers goalie, Cyril Okosieme, who was no longer in much favour with coach Dan Anyiam.

Okala’s fame as Nigeria’s national goalkeeper started in 1973 during the 2nd All Africa Games. Eyo Essien, who was No. 1 goalie at the time, had started to decline, and the mantle fell on Okala. He performed wonderfully, giving a confidence that was unknown before then to his team mates and also to the Nigerian football fans. Since then, Okala has developed into the most feared, the most respected, the most travelled and the longest serving goalie that the 1970-1979 decade had known in Nigeria.

Emmanuel Okala has kept watch of the goal area for Nigeria in several continents. He was in China during the Eagles tour of that country in 1976. He also toured Europe with the Eagles in 1976 before the Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada; and again before the 1978 3rd All Africa Games in Algiers.

He has played football in Canada in the North American continent during the pre-Olympic warm-ups, and he has been in more than 20 African countries playing for the Green Eagles and Enugu Rangers.

In 1975, Emmanuel Okala was named Nigeria’s ‘Footballer of the Year’, and now the continent has followed this up by declearing him the ‘1978 African No. 1 Footballer.’

MUMINI SAYS,

lAs a matter of national pride, I want to advocate that the Nigerian sports media should henceforth refer to Emmanuel Okala as the African Footballer of the Year 1978 any time we write about him. And when we are listing the past winners of the continental prize, we should substitute his name for Karim Abdoul Rasak of Ghana whose name has appeared traditionally in the all-time list “handed down” to us by Paris-based France Football magazine.

As related in Sebastine Ofurum’s article above, a “group of African sports journalists overseas” arrogated to themselves the job of picking Africa’s best player since 1970 because there was no body to do it on the African continent then. Now that we have record to prove that the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (SCSA) mandated a vote by local journalist at least for one year (1978), I think that result should supplant the choice by France Football for that year.

That same principle already applies to the 1993 vote when France Football picked Abedi Pele of Ghana, but the Confederation of African Football (CAF) which had just started its own award that year (sponsored then by Chief M.K.O. Abiola) picked Rashidi Yekini. Pele had earlier won the France Football version in 1991 and 1992 and he likes to be introduced on Super Sport as a three-time African Footballer of the Year. But he was embarrased one day when a viewer phoned in and told Pele to stop parading himself as the 1993 winner since CAF, the continent’s soccer-governing body, had officially selected Yekini. Indeed, the CAF award has supplanted the France Football award ever since although I am aware that some Ghanaian journalists insist, till today, that their son holds the title for 1993,

So, my conclusion: I concur with Ofurum that our Nigerian son, “Man Mountain” Emmanuel Okala was African Footballer of the Year 1978 and I posit that we should henceforth refer to him as such. Coincidentally, Okala will be sixty years in May this year. The only birthday present that I ask the present Super Eagles to get for him is for one of them to emerge as the African Footballer of the Year for 2011.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the sports legends of our present era. Emmanuel Okala, 1978 African Footballer of the Year, is certainly one of them.
Last week, former Super Eagles defender, Uche Okafor, was buried following his sudden death. Let us celebrate Okala while he is alive.

Abdul Razak from Ghana won in 1978, Ali Bencheikh (Algeria) was second while Thomas Nkono was third.

The first top three finish by a Nigerian was for Odegbami who was third in 1977. Odegbami also finished second in 1980. The next time a Nigerian finished in the top three was when Yekini finished third in 1993. Yekini won the award as the first Nigerian in 1994. Okala, sadly was never in the top three.

France football gave the award from 1970 to 1994 while CAF started givining the award in 1993. Yekini won the first CAF award in 1993 while Abedi won the France football award. Amunike won the CAF award in 1994 while Weah won the France Football version in that year.

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