“Why They Call Me Kabongo Ngoy”, Ex-Super Eagle, Dimeji Lawal Explains

Oladimeji Mohammed Lawal first shot into international limelight in 1987; that was two years after Nigeria won the maiden edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in China. At Canada ’87 Dimeji Lawal and the likes of Fatai Atere, Christopher Nwosu, Peter Ogaba (now of blessed memory), Lemmy Isa and others lost the final via penalties to the USSR.   

It wasn’t surprising that he was part of the U-20 team that represented Nigeria at Saudi ’89. Along with the likes of Mutiu Adepoju, Jimoh “Tyson” Balogun, Christopher Ohenhen, Tunde Charity and Philip Osondu, Dimeji played in the team that staged the historic “Miracle of Dammam” comeback against USSR, having trailed 4-0 at halftime.

Fondly referred to as ‘Kabongo Makanacky Ngoy’, Dimeji Lawal is the Team Manager of Shooting Stars; in an interview with the duo of WOLE ADEJUMO and TUNDE AYANDA, Kabongo bared his mind on the problems facing Shooting Stars as well as the challenges he faced as a player and of course how he came about the nickname, Kabongo Ngoy. Excerpts:

Fatai Amoo was laid off as the coach of Shooting Stars sometime ago, why did the management of the club sacrifice him? Where did Amoo get it wrong?

In football globally, whenever anything goes wrong, the coach gets the boot because he is in charge of the team; the technical and tactical ability of the players inclusive. He is in control and he has been given the free hand to choose his players from the beginning of the season and at the end of the season, if he fails, it is always like that.

It is rather unfortunate because Amoo is not a bad coach but when the desired result is not gotten; those are the decisions that are normally taken. For instance, in England, Ranieri won the league and the following year, he was sacked. It does not mean he is no more a good coach but a sacrifice must be made.
 

You’ve been there as a player and a manager, on the part of the players, did something go wrong?

 

When you talk about the players, you are indirectly talking about the management and when you talk of management, you are also talking about the owners of the club. Let me say it this way, if a player is supposed to earn his salary in February and he earns it in March or April, how do you think you can get the best out of the player? When you play football, you need 100% concentration but when you have rent, family problems and all that to cope with. I have been in a situation where my payer was in camp for a game the following day and when I asked why he was so down and dull, he showed me a text on his phone, the wife sent him a text that ‘look, your son will be sent out of school. It is better you leave this job and find another job if you are not being paid’.

Having said that, we all know the problem in Nigeria and it is not peculiar to football. When you talk about that, you talk about teachers, civil servants you will understand that the economic meltdown is a global problem.  The government is trying its best, its best might however not be enough when it comes to football because football needs a lot of investment.  But what we are expecting is that as big as Ibadan is, people should partner with the government but people are not really showing interest.

What happened to the Super Eagles is happening to other teams in Nigeria. In Nigeria, people only associate themselves with success; I remember when Super Eagles was looking for money up and down to run the team’s affairs but immediately they qualified, somebody came in a day and gave N 50 million. Now we have started seeing people coming to make personal donations, it is the same thing in the club sides. Football gulps a lot of money and the government cannot do it alone. 

I laugh sometimes when people outside who don’t talk practically, say Shooting Stars has millions of supporters because when you check the gate takings, you find out that half of the people that come to the stadium don’t want to pay. They are looking for free football; you make jerseys and souvenirs, they don’t buy. I as a TM, I know how many times I had to buy jerseys for friends and supporters. I am not supposed to be doing that because it is a big club.

 

We are proud to associate with foreign clubs, the average Ibadan man doesn’t even know as many as five Shooting Stars’ players but he can give you the first 11 of European clubs. What can we do to bring the kind of support we give to foreign football to our own league?

 

First we have to eradicate the culture of free things in Africa, especially in Nigeria. It is easy for us to buy Man U jersey for N 35,000 than to buy 3SC jersey for N 6,000. When it comes to N 6,000 you see a lot of people complaining. They like it, they want it but they don’t want to pay for it because we are used to the saying nkan wa ni, awa la ni (it is ours). And of course, the packaging that comes with European football year in year out, you see a lot of changes. It all has to do with money. Buying big players is money.

And to the other part of your question about identifying with our clubs and players, how could we? Our best players hardly stay in the country for six months; all they do is play well here for three or four months, when the ovation is loud they find one obscure club somewhere and they go out.

When I was growing, from my head I could tell you what team IICC would present the next weekend because I knew the players and how they performed. And those were the kind of players we were naming ourselves after when we were growing; they were the players we wanted to be like. We don’t have that now and like I said earlier, welfare is paramount; no player will stay where there is suffering, and that is the honest truth. If you want to blame them for leaving early, how will they feed their families? How will they finance the education of their children? How will they pay their rents? Nigerian players can hardly afford to go on holidays, but move to one obscure club in the Arab world or Asia, you’ll be able to afford all these little things. They even have better facilities to work with so the problems are interwoven really.

 

Sometimes, you see spiritualists coming to pray before Shooting Stars’ matches and fans believe one of the challenges of 3SC is spiritual, do you agree? And does the club depend on spiritualists?

 

What is bad about being spiritual? Right before our eyes, people go to church from Monday to Friday; is that not spiritual? Behind my house, we have a Muhdrasat (Qur’anic school) where alfas teach children from Monday to Sunday. You hear mosques, from 5 am to 10 pm is that not spiritual? If I go to my pastor and he gives me a verse in the Book of Psalms, either in oil or in the name of a handkerchief and says recite it and put it on your body anytime you are playing so that God will protect you and I decide to do that, why can’t the Muslim go to an alfa and take tira or the ones that are traditionalists, why can’t they do the same? This is Africa.

People are naïve when they say Shooting Stars base their activities on spiritualism, why then do we train twice a day Mondays through Thursdays? And on Saturdays, why don’t we just select 11 babalawos to go and play? You can’t take that away that we pray and I can say categorically that there is no team in Nigeria that does not invite spiritualists to come and pray for them, it now depends on how you term it. It can be a pastor; it can be an alfa or babalawo. Let me also tell you categorically that all that does not play football. It can enhance and sometimes it is just psychological, you know that feeling of having a backup. When people say that determines everything we do, I don’t want to call it stupidity but they don’t know what they are talking about.

 

When you look back at your days as a footballer and look at the zeal, determination and hunger with which you played, do we have it in today’s crop of players?

 

Go to the universities; are students studying with the same zeal with which people studied in the 1970s and 80s?  Journalism in the early days, is it the same thing with the way it is being practiced now? Like I said, it is a peculiar Nigerian problem.     

You are very right, when I look at some players today; I see that they are people who are unable to do any other thing and now came around to play football. It is not because they have the talent, it is not because they are ready to work hard for it; they just feel it is a way out and a means of survival. I started playing from my primary school days in Ibadan here.  And I remember whenever I went to Olubadan Stadium to play even when I was as young as 8, I came home with money and gifts from people. From there I graduated to playing for my secondary school, played in the university, played grassroots soccer, YSFON, captained Oyo State academicals, so people in my neighbourhood already knew that oh, this guy is going to be a star. It wasn’t a fluke or something impromptu.   

It is something I believe in, it is something I know how to do, it wasn’t accidental but something I worked towards. You can’t get that now, you know why? In Oyo State with about 8 million inhabitants, we have only three paying clubs; I mean teams that pay salaries. Let’s assume we have 1 million footballers; where will their commitment come from? Where will zeal come from? When I was growing up, in Ibadan alone we had about 36 clubs, paying clubs at different categories. It doesn’t have to be the same level but at least you knew you were earning a living through football. Where do you get that nowadays when boys will Yahoo in the morning and come to play football in the evening?

Where are the pitches? Where are the stadia? People are not thinking deep to find out why we are having all these problems. Every uncompleted building has become a school.  If it’s not a school, it becomes a church, if it is not a church, it becomes a mosque. Every playground, every park where you play street soccer, where children begin to learn the trade has been sold or made into a party hall.
So tell me, a child that goes to school in the morning without a football pitch or sporting hall for other sporting activities, no tracks for athletics; the child closes at 2 O’ Clock and stays at school for lesson till 5, from 5 to 6, you get another teacher and does homework till evening; tell me where the talent will come out from.

I tell people it is deliberate but they hardly believe. The leaders and the well to do know that with football, people can get out of the ghetto, they can get out of the streets but in Nigeria, the rich men don’t want the kids of the less privileged to become rich like them. That is why they maintain polo grounds and golf courses so well and they use our football pitches for parties, church activities and all that.

When you started paying football, how did your parents react?

 

Fortunately my dad played football and I heard my mother was a runner for the Old Western State so I can say sports runs in the family but that notwithstanding, it wasn’t easy in the beginning. I had cases where I was withdrawn from my youth teams because they felt I wasn’t concentrating more on my education. I remember there was a time my school had to send representatives to come home to plead with my parents to allow me to come back to the team because they were not training well when I was removed. And the only reason they gave me was that whenever I slept, I would be calling names of my teammates so even when I was sleeping, I wasn’t really sleeping.

So it wasn’t that terrible but it wasn’t that easy. They did what every other parent would do. But I think the full support from my parents came when I played in the Oyo State team that won the Manuwa Adebajo Cup in 1984 at the academicals level. I started receiving their support after that.

Editor's note: The second part of the interview with Oladimeji Lawal will be published on Tuesday 19th December 2017 God willing.