“My target is to return Lobi to the Premier League –Ikya

The Chairman of Lobi Stars FC of Makurdi, Simon Terver Ikya, had in an interview with the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), said when he took over leadership of the club, his target was to return it to the Premiership and that Lobi is a professional football outfit and not a charity organisation.

When you took over the leadership of Lobi Stars FC as Chairman, what was your main target?

My target was to gain promotion back to the Premiership, but we couldn’t make it because of the challenges we had.

What were the challenges?

When we came on board, we inherited a Lobi that was billed for failure and we did everything humanly possible to see how we could correct the anomaly but it was very difficult because the team had already started the 2025/26 NNL season under Coach Bala Abubakar as Head Coach, playing their home matches away in Lafia, where an NNL club, FC Basira, was also playing in the same group (Conference C) and it was not easy because they were working against Lobi and if it were not for God who was on Lobi’s side, they would have overridden us.

Also, the team’s spirit was low due to some of the issues that it had like the Coach Eugene Agagbe saga. So, there was no way we would have done anything at that time in order to avoid more controversies in the team. More so, we were not conversant with the players that we had met and so we allowed the coach to do his work. But along the line, we discovered that the coach was not good enough for the team in the first place. I am sure if he had remained a little longer, Lobi would have escaped relegation by the whiskers.

 At what point did you notice that the coach, Bala Abubakar, was not really good for the team and he had to leave?

 Although, long before now, the last straw that broke the camel’s back was when we returned from Gombe, where we had gone to play an NNL match against Doma United FC. That was when we decided not to let him stay any longer because if we did, more issues would have cropped up. That was why we sat down as a management team and decided to place him on an indefinite suspension and we asked his assistant, John Onuh (Abacha) to take over the team as Head Coach.

How many players did you inherit from the past management?

We inherited sixty-seven players and that too was another big problem. From the time of recruitment, some of the players were signed on contract basis, their contracts were not yet terminated and they were still receiving salaries and for that reason, we couldn’t do anything because Lobi was already engulfed in about sixteen cases at the Arbitration Panel of the NFF, ranging from wrongful termination of appointments. Even as I speak, every day I wake up in the morning, I receive a court case against Lobi and that has really been distracting us but we had to put all of that behind us and focus on our target which was to return Lobi to the Premiership. Considering the challenges that we met on the ground, we have tried our best by ending the season in the second position on the League table. For me, coming second in the League was equally as good for us rather than fighting not to go on relegation.

Are you saying such a large number of players is not good for the team?

It was not good for us. It became a distraction to us and even the coaches too couldn’t do anything. Now that the League is over, going forward, we are going to sit down and address the issue. For this season, I had no hands in the recruitment of players because it was done before I came, so people may excuse me for that reason but for the next League season, I will not give any excuses because our target would be to gain promotion to the Premiership and for that reason, we will get the right players who would execute it for us.

How did signing a large number of players affect running of the club?

First and foremost, signing a large number of players in a team that was playing in the NNL is too much and not only that, the wage bill alone was taking a toll on us. You could imagine that at the end of every month you get a subvention and after payment of salaries, you are left with no dime to run the club knowing that you are supposed to run the club for one month before the next subvention comes in. We didn’t even have the money and we were basically bringing money from outside to run the club and we cannot continue with that. Lobi is a professional football outfit and not a charity organisation but they turned it into a charity organisation where you find players that were not even in the main team earning salaries much higher than those who play. But we agreed to manage the situation to the end of the League. But the truth is that, if you have a humane disposition, you will not sack anybody knowing that they all have families. That was why I did not want to send anybody away. In fact, I have tried but at this point, I can’t take it anymore because the contract of most of them will be over any moment from now and they will have to leave.

But what assurance do you have that your target will be met in the next season?

The truth of the matter is that the Governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia has always been very supportive to the team and that is why I am even ashamed of going before him but due to the circumstances in which we found ourselves, there was nothing we would have done to secure the promotion. Truly, we lost the bid for promotion right in the first round of the League, but God helped us. Now that we have the opportunity to recruit our own players and prepare the team well, I don’t think we would have any excuse to give if we don’t gain promotion to the NPFL. I knew that a lot of things were going wrong in the team but if I had started complaining, we would have been distracted. However, I have taken the responsibility for whatever that happened in the 2025/26 NNL Season and now we have put everything that came with the season behind us and are pushing forward.