The immediate past Chairman of Lobi Stars FC of Makurdi, and Permanent Secretary in the Benue State Ministry of Youth, Sports and Creativity, Dr Philip Ter Nongu, has said in an exclusive interview with VoiceSports‘ Terfa Alaghga, that he did not recruit 70 players for Lobi Stars, his predecessor did and that he reviewed the salaries of players and other staff. He also spoke on other issues.
Excerpts:
VoiceSports: Did you play football in your youth?
Nongu: Very well. I started playing football way back in the primary school, at the St Mary’s Primary School NorthBank, Makurdi. I was later transferred to the St Francis Primary School in Agagbe, Gwer West Local Government Area of Benue State. In all the primary schools that I have mentioned to you, I played football and was the schools’ football team captain. When I graduated from primary school and proceeded to St James’s Minor Seminary, Kanshio in Makurdi, where the Executive Governor of Benue State, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia and I met and started as classmates, I was nicknamed, “Great Pele”, by my classmates because of my goal scoring ability during my play days in school. I was also made the schools’ football team captain but I had to stop playing football after graduating from the Minor Seminary.
VoiceSports: How did you make the schools’ football team in the Seminary?
Nongu: I made the team because I was exceptionally good. In fact, when I came into St James’s Seminary, I made the team even as a junior student despite the past practice where only senior students were allowed to play football in the school. Unfortunately, the knee injury which I sustained kept me away from playing football such that I couldn’t do exercise even today.
VoiceSports: Injury kept you away from football at a very young age, but how did you find yourself in football management?
Nongu: After my graduation from the Minor Seminary, I was later offered employment by the Gwer Local Government Council, as Sports Secretary. In the past, the Benue State Sports Council (BSSC), were posting coaches and secretaries to the local government areas and because they were not staff of the local government, each time they shared imprest, they did not benefit from it. When the late Samuel Afatyo was posted to Gwer Local Government as Sports Secretary, he proposed to the Council Chairman that there was the need to employ a Sports Secretary at the local government level and I was the first Sports Secretary that was employed in 1986, at that level.
VoiceSports: Did you acquire any training in sports management?
Nongu: Yes. Shortly after I was employed, the same Samuel Afatyo of blessed memory recommended that I should be sent to the National Institute for Sports Lagos, for further training and to God be the glory, I went on study leave with pay and read Sports Management. After working for sometime with the Gwer local government council, I was transferred to Makurdi Local government in 1988/9 and in 1990, I was posted to Gboko Local Government Council, where I also served as secretary of the Stadium Management Committee. While in Gboko, in 1992, I saw an advertisement for the position of the Organising Secretary, at the Sports Council which I applied for and behold, I was employed as Organising Secretary 2 on GL 08 and as a fresh employee of the Benue State Government, putting behind me all the years that I had put in working at the local government level. I progressed from the Senior to Principal Organising Secretary and then to the Assistant Chief, after which I became a Director at the Sports Council.
VoiceSports: Who made you Secretary General of the Benue State Football Association (FA)?
Nongu: I was assisting the late Samuel Afatyo as the Organising Secretary 2 and when he retired and Chief Gilbert Kasso took over, I continued in that capacity and when Mr Agada came as the Director of Sports, he saw me and said, “this young man will fit into that office”, and when Chief Kasso left, I took over as the Secretary General of the Benue State FA.
VoiceSports: For how long did you serve as the Secretary General of the FA?
Nongu: I served for sixteen years and I was the second longest serving FA Secretary General in Nigeria, after Mr Akpan from Cross Rivers State. I was also made the National Chairman of the FA Secretary’s Forum in the country. I have been in the football business for a very long time. I remember some people saying, each time they are talking about football, I will say I have served as the FA Secretary for sixteen good years and it is not even an achievement, some go as far as saying I was only organizing pre-match meetings. For me, it is an achievement and many people don’t know.
VoiceSports: Who appointed you the Director of Sports (DoS), Benue Sports Council and how well did you develop sports?
Nongu: The Benue State Government appointed me on the recommendation of the then DoS, when he was leaving office . When I hear people say throughout my tenure as DoS I did not do anything, I laugh. But as the saying goes, “achievements are a very good yardstick of measuring the degree of success, registerable by any activity of organisation and individuals. Without achievements you cannot be measured. If I enumerate my achievements here you will be surprised. As Director of Sports, it was very difficult to get finances especially, during the last administration in the state. For instance, when you don’t go for the Youth Games you will be fined ₦5.000.000 and each time we were going for the games, they gave us the same amount to go and try or do not go at all, and for the National Sports Festival itself, any state that did not participate was penalised and they will approve a little sum of money for us to go for the festival and there was no time that we went for these tournaments and did not return with laurels for the state. The achievements are there for the records.
VoiceSports: How did your appointment as the Chairman of Lobi Stars FC of Makurdi come?
Nongu: The appointment was given to me by His Excellency, Rev Fr Dr Hyacinth Alia, the Executive Governor of Benue State. He felt that I was a good product and I should man that position even though it was not my wish, I accepted the responsibility because as a Civil Servant I will accept any responsibility that is given to me.
VoiceSports: “Even though it was not my wish, I accepted the responsibility”. How do you mean?
Nongu: Yes I didn’t want to because as a principled man, there were so many things that were done in Lobi Stars FC that I didn’t actually like. But His Excellency told me that, “Philip Lobi Stars FC is broken, go and fix it”. These were the inspiring words of His Excellency and I took up that challenge.
VoiceSports: When you accepted to take up the challenge, who nominated the members to work with you on the management team?
Nongu: Thank you for that question Alaghga. He asked me to nominate them and I did it. We took over Lobi Stars FC, two days to the commencement of the 2024/25 NPFL season, when all the players had already been recruited and registered. Shortly after I took over, I began battling with the players, officials and the outsiders because Dominic Iorfa recruited them and they felt that it was a slight on their face by removing him. Most of them said they will not play. I also heard they were telling the players, “don’t play and after three to four games, they will sack the management”, and the players were happy with the crippling instigations and didn’t want to play football. In fact, while I was battling with the outside hurdles, I still had it inside from some of the board members who I single-handedly brought felt they were the ones that were supposed to be in that position. It was a thug of war against me.
VoiceSports: Did you believe in what you heard they were telling the players?
Nongu: I believed it because one of the players told me to my face that he hated me on the first day I was appointed the Chairman of Lobi Stars, but I continued to plead with them to make them understand that government is continuous, Iorfa was here and left, I am here and will one day leave for another person to take over, “so just concentrate on what you are doing since you have chosen football as your career”. In fact, I will never forget the kind of frustration that I got from these players. I cannot imagine we were playing a League match and leading by two goals and a few minutes to the end of the game, the goals are levelled up. What does that tell you?
VoiceSports: What was your reason for recruiting such a large crowd of 70 players into the team?
Nongu: When I read in the interview the Chairman of Lobi Stars, Simon Terver Ikya granted you and he said, he inherited seventy players, I laughed. I am not the one that recruited these players, my predecessor Dominic Iorfa did and they had contract papers and there was no way I could send any of them away until their contract expired and most of them their contract will expire this August. I know of Daniel Atsaka whose contract will be expiring in 2027. It is either you are sending them to go on arbitration for you to pay money or you have negotiations with them. If for instance, a player had eight months left to the expiration of his contract and you negotiated to pay him three or four months and he accepted to forfeit the remaining months and leave, and most of them were not ready to accept it. So we were just managing them before our board was dissolved, it wasn’t as if we wanted to keep seventy players. We did not recruit them. In fact, the players that we brought to the team in the second stanza of the League, left even before our board was dissolved, I know of a player who forfeited his two months salary and left because he no longer wanted to remain with Lobi. So when they are talking about inheriting seventy players, they should be cognisant of the fact that we also inherited that large number including, the backroom staff and we were paying their salaries and not owing anybody, and the allocation was not added to what was being given.
VoiceSports: You were paying salaries and not owing anybody when rumours were making the rounds that you were diverting funds meant for the club?
Nongu: That is laughable. I have also heard many stories and lies flying that I bought many structures in this town including the Bush Bar on Naka Road which they said I own. I wonder how much money that I had that would be able to buy such a gigantic edifice. I don’t think they knew what they were saying.
VoiceSports: You were also faulted for hiring an inexperienced coach, Bala Abubakar for Lobi Stars. Did you?
Nongu: If somebody could sit here in Makurdi and say Coach Bala Abubakar of all people was not an experienced gaffer, I would be surprised. When we brought Coach Bala to Lobi, he prepared a team that was ready to go back to the Premiership but unfortunately, we were dissolved and when the Ikya led Interim Management Committee came in, they said he was not good and they asked him to leave. That man was on contract and until his contract expires, they cannot send him away. What I know is that I brought a competent coach for Lobi Stars, which I am very sure about.
VoiceSports: What did you do differently from your predecessor that deserves commendation but has remained unannounced?
Nongu: When I took over Lobi as Chairman, I asked all the players and staff to bring before me their contract papers which they did and when I perused, I discovered that Coach Eugene Agagbe who was supposed to be paid #1.5M per month as specified in the contract, was sometimes paid Three to Four Hundred Thousand Naira only, I reviewed his salary and started paying him the complete sum of #1.5M and so many other players and staff. I went ahead to ask how much the players were paid as a match bonus for a win and they said sometimes #20.000 and for the officials, they said nothing. That was when I said going forward, the match bonus is #70.000 for the players and #50.000 for the officials and all the matches they won, we paid them their bonuses. I thought I was encouraging them and rather than appreciate what I was doing for them, they were not because they had made up their minds on what they wanted to do against me.
VoiceSports: Apart from the large crowd of players that you inherited from Dominic Iorfa, did you also inherit financial debts?
Nongu: Yes there were some debts in his handover note which I wish it were here for me to show you and how much we tried and were able to manage them because they were owing individuals. We invited all the people they were owing together in my office and pleaded with them and said, “this is what we have got from my predecessor but for now we don’t have money, so please give us some little time to write to the Governor, to release money for us to settle you”. They all accepted The approval did not come until I left Lobi. On the issue of the Forty-Seven Million Naira which they mentioned in the interview to you, it was not contained in the handover note to us. If he had included it, we would have addressed it. I didn’t know about it.
VoiceSports: Within your short stint with Lobi, did you pay any attention to the Lobi U – 19 team at all?
Nongu: Of course I did pay. Before now, we already had the U-19 team which I did all I needed to do to encourage them. I assembled the team with coaches and they went out for a national competition held at the Umuahia zone in Abia state and won. The twenty – two players we assembled were to travel out of the country for a tourney which did not come to pass. Two of the players like, Agugu and the other player whose name I can’t recall now, graduated to the main team of the Lobi Stars FC.
VoiceSports: What would you say is your regret after leaving Lobi at the time you did?
Nongu: When Lobi went on relegation under my watch, I regretted the development and I apologized to the Governor, Rev Fr Dr Hyacinth Alia, the teeming fans and supporters and the entire people of Benue State, that we are sorry and they should give us time to take the team back to Premiership but unfortunately, as we were preparing towards that our board was dissolved. However, I give glory to God that within my short stint with Lobi Stars, I recorded some achievements.
VoiceSports: How did playing Lobi’s home League matches away from their ancestral home affect you?
Nongu: It was not easy at all. We first started playing our home NPFL matches in Lafia and we discovered that the Lafia people from the FA, the Referees Council and the spectators, didn’t want Lobi Stars because each time we went for our home League matches, they would be cheering our opponents up to victory. For instance, when Kano Pillars FC came to play against us in Lafia, before they knew it Lobi Stars scored Pillars two goals and eight minutes to the end of the 90 minutes of regulation time, our goalkeeper, Daniel Atsaka conceded two goals. When we looked at the scenario, I called the NFF on the phone that we were not comfortable with the Lafia venue. We changed to Bauchi thinking they would support us but unfortunately, it was the worst and we had to relocate to Enugu where we had the maximum support but hiring the stadium for a League match alone was Two Million Naira. I pleaded with the Enugu State Commissioner of Sports to beat down the cost and he refused. He said when Rangers travelled to Uyo, they were hiring the stadium for the sum of Ten Million Naira. We had no choice but to remain there and each League match that we played in Enugu stadium, we paid Two Million Naira. So it was not funny.
VoiceSports: Since you left Lobi, have you had the time to visit or interact with them at all?
Nongu: I have not and I don’t go because when I handed over to the then Commissioner of Youth, Sports and Creativity, Tiza Imojime who handed over to Terver Ikya, I said in my remarks that my office was open and if he had any issue, I will be available and that I don’t have any problem with Lobi, it is my team, it is a football team just like other football teams in the state that cannot run away from the Sports Ministry that I am the Permanent Secretary in charge of. But when they left they said, what does Dr Philip Nongu know that Lobi went on relegation under his watch? Do I have to force myself on them? I can’t do that but I wish them well and I don’t have any problem with any of them .
VoiceSports: As a Permanent Secretary in charge of the Sports Ministry, what is your advice to the management of Lobi Stars?
Nongu: Well, I will keep advising them if they come to me but unfortunately, they don’t. But for me, I take Lobi as my team, the state government’s team, the team that is so dear to all of us, the team that I Chaired its management team with love and passion. There is no way I will do anything to hurt it. I think what I should be doing is to continue praying for the team to succeed and return to the Premiership because that is what will give us joy and satisfaction. However, my appeal to them is that anything they want me to assist them on and in any way, I am ready to do.
VoiceSports: Were you aware that your appointment as Chairman of Lobi will be short-lived?
Nongu: I was not aware of it. It came to me as a surprise but I did not feel bad over it because the government is continuous. I am the Permanent Secretary and will not remain there forever. When you are occupying whatever position, you should have it at the back of your mind that, “no condition is permanent”. You should be ready to go out at any time and that is the reason you don’t need to have any grudge just as I don’t. If you recall, when the Terver Ikya led Interim Management Committee took over, I congratulated them openly. That is why I will continue to thank God for His Excellency, Rev Fr Dr Hyacinth Alia, for the opportunity he gave me to serve in that capacity and I pray to God to bless him with the wisdom and strength to take sports in the state to an enviable state.
