Written By Bethel Kalu
On Thursday morning, the social media in Nigeria was awash with a supposed picture of a women’s football club in Abia State, Abia Angels who allegedly sat on the carrier of a bus, on their way to an NWFL game against Delta Queens in Umuahia.
This picture elicited reactions on social media. The club and its management were lambasted for risking the lives of the girls
There are many questions begging for answers. Were the girls truly players from Abia Angels? Was that their team bus? What really happened on that day? Here are results of an investigation and some questions left to be answered
To start with; the bus seen in the picture does not belong to Abia Angels. The State Government donated a bus to the team and they used it for their journeys. It is also pertinent to note that the team is based in Aba but they play their home games in Umuahia, which means thay they make a journey of about one hour on every match day.
The Hummer bus which was donated to the club by the State Government was grounded and efforts to repair the bus have been futile as it is still faulty after visits to a mechanic workshop. Because of this, the team resorted to hiring a bus to take them to their home and away games. Ideally, they got a bus owner who takes them to these games with his bus. The team convinced the driver to place a “sticker” on the bus with the inscription “Abia Angels Football Club FC” in order to give them easy identification.
On the match day, being 10th March 2021, the team went to Umuahia on the same bus but they did not return with it.
A careful look at the trending picture shows that the girls wore a blue jersey, contrary to Abia Angels home jersey which is red. The team has always travelled with the bus and they have not been seen to travel like this and they have played games in Umuahia and other away venues and they travelled with this bus.
It is also worthy to note that most of the ladies on the bus wore black trousers and black polo tops. A careful look on the tops shows that there is a picture in front of it.
It is hard to believe that footballers going for a game would wear tight-fitted trousers and uniform black tops. The number of girls who wore the black tops outnumbered those who wore jerseys and that suggests that the black regalia has a connection with their reason for traveling
The environment where the picture was taken shows that it was not in a stadium. That was not the Umuahia Township Stadium as claimed. That too was not the Abia Angels camp
Abia Angels management had refuted the claims and alleged that the ladies in the picture are members of a grassroots team that went for a burial. A post on Ubakala Queens Football Club of Umuahia’s Facebook page shows that a member of the team had a funeral of a family member and the team attended the funeral. This also corroborates what Abia Angels management said that the driver of the vehicle was “contracted to take people to the burial ceremony”. They would have won the jerseys in solidarity with their colleague
The chairman of the Abia Angels had in a press release begged the Government to come to their aid to help them get a vehicle to aid their journey. The team is directly under the office of the First Lady
Observations and Questions
Contrary to a claim that the club gave the driver a sticker, the picture shows that the name of the club was printed on the bus.
Question: Why would a club have its name on a commercial vehicle?
Why would the bus driver agree to take a team to a funeral when Abia Angels have a game on the same day, knowing full well that he would take them to and fro the game?
At this point, it is easy for people to lambast the team because their name is written on the bus.
The Abia State Government can intervene and get the team a bigger bus, like the ones used by the Government for commuters traveling from Aba to Umuahia. This will make the ladies comfortable. Still, there are questions left unanswered