The respectable 1 1 draw Enyimba pulled off in Port Harcourt against Rivers United earned us a point that barely keeps us above the relegation line. If you offered me that point before kickoff, I would have collected it with both hands and a receipt. But after we took the lead, like Oliver Twist, I wanted more. All three points. Still, when you consider the late siege Rivers laid on us and how we had to dig deep to survive the final minutes, a draw is not the worst outcome at all.
Maybe when we look back at the end of the season, this single point will read differently. Not as a small escape, but as a turning point in our survival story. Because right now, we are in that phase where every point counts twice. The margin is that thin and the table is that unforgiving.
Next up is a home match against Kun Khalifat, and it is the kind of fixture that comes with extra pepper. It is an immediate opportunity to consolidate on the gains from Port Harcourt, and a delayed chance to serve cold revenge on the team that handed us our first defeat of the season on Matchday 8. That loss in Owerri did not just end our unbeaten run. It started a chain reaction, a three-match losing streak and a slow capitulation from our perch at the top. So yes, this one has an axe to grind.
It is clear to everyone involved with the club, management, coaches, players, fans, that we cannot afford to waste points anymore. What is not clear, however, is the club’s information management. Outside matchdays, Enyimba communicates like a secret society. Things are always happening, meetings, decisions, exits, arrivals, but you will hardly hear it from official quarters until the damage is already done and everybody has moved on.
The mid-season transfer window saw the exit of some players, most notably the captain, Pascal Eze. And we are now seeing a pattern that should worry any serious supporter. We have become a club that keeps quiet when key players leave. Last season ended and notable names from the 2022/2023 title-winning squad departed with no official communication, no appreciation, no acknowledgement, nothing that places on record what they gave the badge. Players like Somiari Alalibo, Imo Obot, Chikamso Okechukwu, Innocent Gabriel, Elijah Akanni and others left in silence. Their names were later lumped together in a press release after they had already started new chapters elsewhere. Cold. Lazy. Unworthy.
This time, Captain Pascal Eze and last season’s top scorer Joseph Atule exited without any official notification. Instead, their squad numbers 18 and 7 were quickly reassigned to new signings, Samuel Okechukwu and Wonah Williams, without a single word for the previous bearers of those shirts. What a crude way to bid farewell. Like yanking the jersey off a man’s back and acting like he never wore it.
With Eze heading to Black Bulls of Mozambique and Atule moving to Barau FC in Kano, the list of players who still carry the living memory of our last league title in 2023 keeps shrinking. And right now, the experienced core is basically reduced to two players, Ekene Awazie and Uwana Asuquo, who have barely kicked a ball this season. That matters. It affects leadership. It affects mentality. It affects how a team behaves when the stadium is tense and the last ten minutes feels like a war zone.
And the replacements have not exactly inspired confidence either. Worse still, the new boys have a front row seat to how this club operates now. They are seeing long-serving players leave without acknowledgement. They are seeing injured players treated like forgotten files. And to crown it all, they are feeling the pinch of poor welfare, with a backlog of match bonuses owed among other things. The Enyimba that used to be the dream club, the gold standard, the place players begged to come to, is now a tottering giant. The old lure of proper welfare, a clearer path to trophies, and the exposure that comes with continental football is now looking like a mirage.
That is why this Kun Khalifat game is bigger than three points. It is a test of seriousness. It is a chance to get even, to march into March with a statement win, and to finally create a small buffer between us and the relegation battlers. That is the charge. That is the assignment. And it must be accomplished if we are truly serious about beating the drop.
Enyimba Enyi.
