Between the Devil. . .

Allard's comment on my 'Small world' post just reminded me that I had promised to tell the story of Ishiaku Ilyasu.

My apologies for forgetting. But, better late than never.

I knew Ilyasu Ishiaku when he played for Julius Berger.

As a midfielder, the young man was very combative, and scored some cracking goals too.

That was about three, four years ago and like in the Ezeala case, I was with KickOff magazine still. I am terrible with dates, unless I have something to use as a marker and right now am kinda lazy so I wont go back and do any checking.
Okay, I just did and it's really four years ago.



The story I am about to tell however, actually happened in 2004. Ishiaku (#28 in the pic above) had left Nigeria and was playing in Israel for a second division club. He was actually doing quite well and had scored a brilliant goal almost from the half way mark in a Cup tie and another fine individual goal.

I had downloaded the videos of both efforts from his club website. Those were the B.Y. days (ie Before YouTube).

I was looking to do a story on him, but I needed to speak to him and get some quotes.

Let me jump off the track a bit and give a lesson here to aspiring journos. In any story, quotes are king. Not only do quotes give your story credibility, they also make it more interesting to read, and have the added benefit of showing that you put in some work.

Anybody can sit down and write an article, but it takes someone with contacts to get the quotes necessary, and that is what sells your story. Not the amount of grammar you blow.

Back on track again. I had made a note to get Ishiaku's number and ring him to get his quotes on his goals and leading what amounted to an unfashionable club to the semifinals (I think, not sure anymore) of the national cup competition.

I wasnt having much success.

Reason being that I couldn't reach the young man. When he went on trials in Israel a few months before along with Emeka Akueme (then of Kwara United), he had called me from there and we chatted. But I think I lost his number after that and no one else seemed to have it.

It was frustrating.

And then voila! A gentleman walked into my office one day on Victoria Island and said he was a football agent. He told me he had come to talk about his player who was doing well in Israel.

I was willing him with everything I had to say Ishiaku. . .

I think it must have been that strong self will of mine, although I can see now it was God's hand working. But the gentleman brought the pics and lo and behold, it was the boy I had been looking for!

I could have done a jig right there and then!!

I had to check my calendar to be sure Christmas had not come early. It hadnt. But I was not looking this gift horse in the mouth, so I asked him to shoot, and he gave me contact number, pics and all. He informed me the semifinals would be coming soon and if I could do something on the lad ahead of it. He even told me it was Ishiaku who had told him about me as I was a friend of his.

At that point I could have said yes, even if it wasnt true. Kiddin. . .

Over half my job was done at that stage and I assured him that his boy would get his well-earned coverage.

The next day I rang Ishiaku and we had a long chat. My plan was to do something for the magazine, and then a preview just before the semifinal.

But here is where the story began to unfold.

Two days after that meeting, Mr Agent called me to say he hadn't seen the story on the KickOff website. I told him I had spoken to the boy and the story would be in before the semifinal, but my focus was on the magazine as I had a deadline to meet.

My guy was forced to come down to brass tacks. Apparently, my friend and his partners in Israel were looking to sell the lad on to a top club, and needed some Naija media coverage to add to the videos and cuttings from Israel.

His partners, obviously, had done their part (with help from Ishiaku's goals) by getting him in the papers in Israel. But they also needed some lines from Nigeria to add to that.

Did I mention that the boy had also appeared in an U23 game or two at the time? So they were looking to build up a CV. And Mr Agent had assured his partners that he could guarantee the Nigeria angle. KickOff of course, was the only online medium he could use at the time so he came to me.

After explaining all these to a gradually incredulous me, he assured me that there would be 'something' for me, and also later when the deal went through.

I was not angry. I wasn't. Truly. Just sad.

Dilemma is the only word I can think of to describe the situation I found myself in at the time. This lad had done well and deserved his fair share of copy, both print and online.

At the same time, I had an agent who had practically told his partners he could buy his way to getting copy for a player. It was a big problem. I had spoken to the boy and had a good story that would have been on the site in a couple of days and goodness knows he deserved his time.

But, how could I convince anyone that I wasn't doing it for the lure of the lucre on offer?

The answer was that I couldn't.

The consequences of putting that story out far outstripped whatever benefit it would have done to the player. The implication would have been that we were up for sale. That any agent could come and offer gratification to have his player hyped. And in this business, word gets around at the speed of light.

I probably would have had more people trooping in and offering 'something' so that this or that player could be 'promoted'. Say no, and it looks as if you are holding
out for a higher bid.

And then there was the issue of the foreigners. They would probably look at whatever other reports come out from us and think that someone else paid to have that there.
I wasn't going to stand for that.

So I made the difficult decision to drop the story.

Simple.