Nigerian League: Abia Warriors want El-Kanemi tie moved from Maiduguri

Officials of Abia Warriors fear for the safety of the team due to Boko Haram attacks.

Abia Warriors Football Club of Umuahia has renewed its appeal on the League Management Company, LMC, to relocate its Week Two Glo Premier League encounter with El-Kanemi Warriors from Maiduguri to another venue for security reasons.

In a Save-Our-Soul, SOS, letter signed by the Secretary of Abia Warriors FC, Oliver Ndife, and sent to the Chief Operating Officer of LMC, Salihu Abubakar, Abia Warriors referred to its earlier correspondence on the matter, for which it has not received an answer. It urged the LMC to relocate the Week 2 encounter in order to secure the lives of officials and players who would attend the game.

“Our position on this matter is borne out of pressure from families and friends of our players and officials who are refusing to let their loved ones travel for the match for fear of being attacked enroute to the venue of the match”, the letter read in part. “Even though it could be argued that security would be provided in Maiduguri town, our club’s fear is, what happens in transit, say between Abuja
and Maiduguri”.

The club recalled the renewed killings of innocent people in the Borno State by the outlawed Boko Haram sect in recent times, including the killing of several football fans at a viewing centre in the Ajilari area of the state as well as the invasion of a village in Maiduguri by members of a dreaded sect in military camouflage in which more than 39 people who were preparing for prayers were gruesomely murdered.

The club, therefore, urged the LMC to hasten action and relocate the Week 2 action from Maiduguri to a venue where the safety of players and officials will be guaranteed.