TRUE LIFE STORY FROM A SPORTS WRITER : From Kano to Cairo, 6th July 2025.
On 6th July 2025, I boarded an Ethiopian airline Boeing aircraft travelling from Kano to Cairo.
I had an hectic time completing the boarding rituals at Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, MAKIA, no thanks to the luggage entrusted in my custody by some of my Nigerian football brothers residing in Cairo.
The last thing I would do is to pretend of not been conversant with how Nigerian food stuff traders in Egypt exploit their fellow citizens, men, Nigerian food is expensive in Egypt , just like in the other parts of the world I had visited in my over two decades career as a sports writer, this is a story for another day.
Out of football solidarity I oblige to convey the food items that were delivered to me at the radio Kano office of Alhaji Lurwanu Idris Malikawa , an incumbent national executive member of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria , SWAN, this was few days before my departure from the ancient city of Kano.
On the flight, I was delighted to know that the captain flyting the big bird , was one beautiful lady, I will not tell you her name, I ,requested to meet with her, I mean the pilot, my request was not denied neither was it granted , they played me ojoro, I still hope to meet her someday, her skills amazed me, she was damn too good a pilot, I pray CAF or FIFA employ her, so that she would fly footballers around the world, or maybe Real Madrid, Arsenal or Bayern Munich or even Juventus football club will employ her to fly their official aircrafts, if they are not planning to sell their properties to sign on new legs, this will also give me the chance to meet this wonderful woman pilot, who flew that giant and scaring aircraft without the bird complaining, her take off and landing speaks volumes, my mind is clean, I don’t know what is running through your mind now as a reader.
For over 20 years of my sports globe trotting, for the first time, my neighbor on the flight is a pretty young friendly woman of Hausa /Fulani extraction, she works in Saudi Arabia, with her as my flight neighbor from Kano to Addis Ababa , the over four hours flight was a wonderful experience , she knows her onus, I must confess, I am hardly comfortable with women strangers ,because I am not a good toaster, it is proven that I am not a good lover boy, but this time around, I found a jolly good friend , she was versed in the Islamic faith and a thoroughly breed professional, we had a swell time discussing politics, religion, philosophy and sports, we agreed to meet again, insha Allah. what happened next is none of your business , read on.
Not to bug you with long story, I arrived Cairo International airport, I spent hours waiting to be cleared and issued with an visa on arrival, everything went on fine, I approached the luggage session, picked my luggage’s and had them seated comfortably on a trolley, as I pushed the trolley towards the exit route, a lady in her late 30’s approached me , hastily with a polythene bag that contained what looked like a packet of detergent and she said to me, sir please help me with this bag sir, I said no problem, drop it on the trolley, I said to her, she did so and she quickly walked away, I smiled, small pikin wey no know medicine dey call am vegetable , says my Yoruba elders.
As I pushed my luggage towards the scanning area, I kept vigil watching her, she stood where she was by the corner side, far behind me, pretending to be busy, though doing nothing , at about 15 metres to the scanning area, I called out madam, oya come and pick your polythene bag and get it scanned, so that I can help you take it outside the exit gate , gbam, she stood still where she was standing and refused to move an inch.
I now spoke again, this time in Yoruba language , madam come and take your polythene bag, for scanning, she came forward a bit closer to where I was standing, pushing her trolley along , I realized that the trolley, she was pushing was empty, I could now noticed how perplexed she had become, she was now sweating profusely and murmuring .
She kept signaling me to move on, I insisted she pick her item and get it scanned by herself , she pushed further closer to me and said to me please go ahead sir, I said no madam, pick the polythene bag and proceed to scan it, a tall dark lady from no where whispered to me, the leather is clean sir, help her, I turned back , looked at her and gave her that killer look, instantly she disappeared. It was around past 6 am Egyptian time .
The aunty suspect , like I choose to call her, collected the polythene bag from my trolley , my eyes on her, I noticed she was worst at been no longer at ease, she was perplexed and enveloped in mumbles.
My luggage’s passed the scanning process, I transferred them back to the trolley, as I was about moving to the exit, I noticed this man in his early forties, he wrapped himself in the Green White Green Nigerian national flag colors, peeping through the glasses that demarcate the exit area from the scanning area, with all seriousness , he was on the phone , speaking in an harsh tone , screaming in his conversation with the person on the other end of the phone, he spoke in Yoruba dialect saying, why did you drop the polythene bag, the other person you gave the second bag has dropped it on the floor too, what is wrong with you.
I halted and for some few second to scan around, through the transparent glass doors , to see if I could catch a glimpse of whom he was speaking with, luckily I sighted the lady who gave me the polythene bag from afar, she was also on the phone, I smiled and moved on.
Outside the airport main building, at the unofficial passengers waiting area, I over heard some Nigerian young ladies in their early twenties discussing, I recalled we had arrived on the same flight and spent time together waiting for our visas on arrival to be issued, speaking audibly , one said “she tried to give me the bag I refused to collect it, another said, “I collected it and when I got to the scanning area I dropped it for her there , one other said, “my madam had warned me seriously not to take anything from anybody, after fifteen minutes , we were all dispersed into the morning musk of Cairo, to various part of the city of the Pharoahs.
As I settled down in my little corner in Nasr City, I now began to wonder, who was this lady, who is the man on the phone speaking in Yoruba, if I did not collect the polythene bag would she had found a gullible young traveler, who would have fallen for her conspiracy, since there were dozens of migrant workers from Nigeria, who had travelled with us on the same flight through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Cairo.
What was Abdulgafar Oladimeji up to, when he allowed the unknown woman or aunty sister suspect to drop the polythene on his trolley, was he playing a script, did he walked into a trap, would the world have believed me, if I was arrested for drug trafficking, after all my friend Lurwanu Idris Malikawa Garu recently had once asked me that aside from sports , if I was into something else to earn some extra income.
I do not live large, I hardly live in a good house and I don’t even own a car neither do I have a fat bank account, still would those who knew me for what I stood for believe that, it is the same Abdulgafar who always claimed to be that tough principled guy or would they think I had suddenly changed and was all out to make money, since I am now getting older and have accumulated bills to settle .
Was it the journalistic appetite to make some money, knowing very well that eyewitness story can fetch me some good money in Egypt, is that why I pushed the trolley to few metres before reaching the scanner and then suddenly asked aunty suspect to come and scan it herself, only for me to have waited and see if she would be arrested and I would make a good story from it and get well paid by the Egyptian press, since they pay well for stories like the one I had anticipated , unlike in Nigeria where your story is not worth more than the press card issued to you to survive, would many had believed this plot knowing that I am a core sports reporter.
But I was confident, maybe because I knew the CCTV camera’s were actively recording all our transactions, so nothing to fear,
But I think those who knew my precedence as a crime journalist, talking about seasoned crime journalists like Abbas ibrahim, who is the erstwhile chairman , NUJ Kano council , now national trustee of the NUJ, Mustapha Gambo now vice chairman , NUJ Kano, Nasiru Mohammed formerly of Triumph newspaper , my oga at the top , former Sunday Trust editor, Lawan Danjuma, Bashir Inuwa of Freedom radio, Abdulaziz Abdulaziz now media aide to Nigerian president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would they have all believe me, because they knew my curiosity pattern , I feared no limits, which earned me the nickname criminal amongst my journalism peers.
Kalas. Good morning from Egypt.
Abdulgafar Oladimeji is a Kano based sports writer, sports arbitrator and sports law consultant.
