Brown Ideye and the Elephant in the Room

Good morning!

It’s been a minute since I picked up my pen or more accurately, my keyboard to share a few thoughts on Enyimba. Not for lack of material, oh no. If anything, there’s been too much going on. But here we are: wrists oiled, focus sharpened, ready once again for the good, the bad, and the downright baffling.

Let’s not pretend. A glance at Enyimba, the most prestigious football club in Nigeria (no arguments, just facts), reveals a team that has drifted from stagnation into a slow motion nosedive. Once miles ahead of the pack, we’ve quietly slid down the pecking order, and the descent is becoming hard to ignore. The earlier we hit the brakes, the better.

This past week, the football streets were buzzing, all thanks to Brown Ideye’s comments on the 54footballx podcast. Naturally, the gist blogs swarmed like bees to honey because what’s more important than traffic, right? Their reward? Viral content. Ours as fans? Shame, confusion, and more side eye than a Lagos danfo driver at a checkpoint.

The club’s response? A rebuttal aimed at painting Ideye as ungrateful, but one that largely sidestepped the real issues. Then came another clip, not as spicy, but even more worrying, about a team that travelled early… but forgot the proper kits. Haba now. That’s not Sunday league stuff; that’s Sunday afternoon gist in the beer parlour.

But I’m not here to throw punches at either Brown Ideye or the club. What interests me more is what these stories reveal, or better yet, confirm. Because let’s face it, being an Enyimba fan these days feels like carrying an emotional backpack that gets heavier by the week. We used to be the pride of the nation. Nigeria’s football lighthouse. Everyone’s benchmark. Now? We struggle to make the “teams to watch” shortlist.

With a new season looming, these revelations couldn’t have come at a worse or perhaps more timely moment. On the bright side, it’s a wake up call. A chance for the club’s leadership to get serious, plug the holes (not gag the players, abeg), and bring about real change. The challenge? Convincing top quality players to join a team surrounded by this kind of noise. Those elite signings we were known for might now be replaced by players trying to escape the trenches of relegated sides, looking for any safe landing.

Yes, it’s a tough job. But after two full seasons in charge, can we still label this management rookies? Surely, some level of mastery or at least competence should be visible by now.

There’s a lot to say about the playing squad too, but I’ll save that pepper stew for another day. For now, the alarms are ringing, the foundation is shaking, and if the kings of Nigerian football don’t rise to the moment soon, we might be left watching the crown roll even further out of reach.

Till next time.