Olumide Harris

Harris was the handsome fair-skinned dare-devil striker who practically came from nowhere, took the Nigerian league by storm, scored goals with effortless ease, and became the highest goals scoere in the elite division at the end of the 1994 season, playing in the colours of 3SC of Ibadan.

Yet, all of these would not have happened but for a twist of fate as signing for 3SC was not on the cards at the beginning of that season. Hear him:

“My going to 3SC that year was nothing short of divine. I was a player of Stationery Stores but, because of my age and the presence of established stars in the team, first team opportunities were not there for me so I was always on the bench and growing frustrated. Then Stores had FA Cup engagement at the Rojenny Stadium in Onitsha but I didn’t make the team.

“Nonetheless, I went although I had to travel in the Supporters Club’s bus. El-Kanemi FC were also at the same centre and my friend Musa Aliu (Kalala) was playing for them. At the end of the competition, he talked to their coach about me and he asked me to come over for a trial so Kalala asked me to ride in their bus back to Maiduguri. Everything over there was strange to me but football has a universal language so I knew it was probably my only chance to make it if I could do well.

 

“At the team training, I played in a practice match and scored four goals against their first-choice goalkeeper, Aliyu Muzambilu who was arguably one of the three best goalkeepers in the Nigerian league at the time. The crowd went berserk and started screaming at me. I was afraid because I didn’t speak a word of Hausa so I thought maybe they were angry that I had scored and made Muzambilu look very ordinary.

“However, after the training, Kalala calmed me down that they were only appreciating my effort and demanding that I be signed immediately by the club officials. Even Muzambilu came to congratulate me and that was when I was able to breathe easily.

“The officials took me to the office and we negotiated my salary at forty thousand naira which was a lot for a young player of my status then. I was asked to go and bring my stuff from Lagos and given ten thousand naira as transport allowance.

“Kalala and I came back to Lagos and this was when the story got interesting. I already told everybody I had signed for El-Kanemi and they expected me to move to Maiduguri but each time I asked Kalala when we are going, he would always tell me to be calm as he needed to sort out one or two things.

“One day, he asked me to pack my bag as we would be going to Maiduguri but he needed to do something in Ibadan first. We got to Ibadan and went to the Adamasingba stadium where 3SC where training for the upcoming season. Surprise, surprise, I saw Kalala dress up and getting on to the pitch.

“I didn’t know he had negotiated a transfer to 3SC from El-Kanemi. I just stood by the side of the pitch and when a stray ball came my way, I trapped it in-between my legs and sent it back to the pitch. The next training I participated and did well, scoring a couple of goals too.

“Felix Owolabi and Philip Boamah were the coaches in-charge that year and I saw Kalala talking to them and when they inquired about me, I learnt he told them I had already signed for El-Kanemi. He also told them how good I was and that I was mobbed by El-Kanemi fans when I was there. I guessed this got the coaches interested and they appealed to him to talk to me.

“At the end of the training, we went to the club house in Jericho but before we got there I learnt one young 3SC supporter, popularly called ‘Any News’ had led some supporters to meet Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi, who was the sole administrator, and demanded that the club signed that striker before he goes to another club. Because Ogunjobi was not at the team’s training, he didn’t know what they were talking about and waited until the team arrived so he could ask the coaches.

“I saw all of these but I didn’t even know it had anything to do with me until Kalala came to meet me that the officials asked him to talk to me. When I asked him about El-Kanemi, he then told me that he was not going back to Maiduguri and that it would be better if I stayed with him in Ibadan. Since he was one of the reasons that I was going to El-Kanemi, because we grew up together, I had no choice but to submit to Kalala’s arm-twisting and blackmail. The rest, as they say, is history today but I thank God that I listened to him and signed for 3SC.”

Harris is a Lagos boy, having been born and grown up in the Shitta area of Surulere which is a stone-throw from the National Stadium, which meant he saw 

a lot of football as a kid on the street. As a young boy, he was what you would describe as a modern-day mercenary: he teamed up with other guys of his age-group to play for whoever needed their services for a fee.

From pawning his services, Harris played for Alarm FC with other youngsters who also went on to make a name for themselves in national and international football, notably Mba Agbai amongst others.

He was at Alarm FC while still in high school and played with them for a couple of years before making the massive jump to Stationery Stores of Lagos, one of the most supported teams in the Nigerian league. With opportunities at a premium at Stores, he went for trials in El-Kanemi and had a gentleman’s agreement to sign for the Maiduguri-based side.

In the meantime, he joined Lagos-side Eko Meridian in the second division and was the team’s leading goalscorer. By a twist of fate, he got to sign for Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) of Ibadan and that marked the turning point in his career and, by extension, his life too.

In the 1994 season, leading the line for his team, Harris took the league by storm and scored many a delightful goal in all competitions. In the league, he was credited with 14 goals, which was enough to earn him the top scorer’s award, but he scored a lot more than that which got chalked off due to the notorious inefficiency of those administering the league. For example, his hat-trick in the 3-1 defeat of Kano Pillars was wiped off when the team lost boardroom points to their opponents.

His goals and performances got critical reviews and earned him simultaneous invitations to both the Super Eagles and the national U-20 team, the Flying Eagles in 1994. He agonized over which national team to join but finally settled for the junior team.

Hear him: “I was invited by both Amodu Shaibu and Fanny Amun but I thought hard about it and settled for the Flying Eagles because I felt I would be playing among guys of my age but if I go to the Super Eagles, I will be among much more experienced guys and may eventually not get enough playing time.

“That was the situation I found myself in Stores so I didn’t want the same thing to repeat itself. I explained to coach Amodu and, to his credit, he saw reason with me. That was how I went to the Flying Eagles which was preparing for the African Youth Championship to be hosted by Nigeria in 1995.”

The AYC was supposed to be the competition which will announce Harris to a wider audience beyond Nigeria but it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for Nigeria as the team ‘fumbled and wobbled’ to third-place, as against the general expectations of a win on home soil by the fans. Harris, despite his pre-tournament ratings, was a shadow of himself and never had a realistic shot on goal.

 

For the first time ever, he narrates what went wrong with the team and himself at the AYC:

“I’m not trying to make excuses but the fact was that I was hit by a strange ailment when I got to the Flying Eagles camp. There was this feeling of tiredness that I have each time I wanted to play and then I had severe stomach cramps.

“When the team went on a playing tour of Germany, I was in so much pain that I was always crying myself to sleep even though, looking at me physically, it looked as if I was okay. The only people who had an idea of what I was going through were Duke Udi and Gideon Imagbudu who were my roommates in camp.

“Whenever I complained to the coach, he would encourage me to just work harder and that he believed in my abilities. Coach Amun stood by me and even stuck his neck out to take me to the competition but the truth was that I wasn’t in a good frame physically and mentally to play. Udi and Imagbudu are both alive today and can testify to what I’m saying.”

Despite this poor showing, however, the AYC was to provide a springboard for taking his career to Europe. A European scout, who had tracked the trajectory of his career approached Harris and offered him the chance to join a team in Belgium.

“I was surprised when he approached me because I knew I didn’t have a good tournament but he told me that he had been following me for a while and is convinced I had what it takes to make it in Europe.”

Off to Europe he went and got signed on by Aalst, the team which once had former Super Eagles defender Godwin Okpara on its roster, and though things were rosy at the beginning, the old ailment resurfaced. The pains were excruciating and, though club doctors gave him pain-killing injections, the agony was unbearable and adversely affected his performances.

He wasn’t able to play as much as the club wanted so, sadly at the end of the 1995 season, he was let go by the team officials who advised him to go and find a lasting solution to his injury problems.

Harris sought for medical help in Germany and returned to Nigeria at the beginning of the 1996 season to re-launch his career. He signed for former team 3SC but the club had already concluded registration for the 1996 CAF Champions Cup so he was limited to playing in domestic competitions for the team. Should 3SC get to the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup, however, he would be eligible to be registered for the competition.

However, two weeks to the team’s third-round elimination, from which they qualified for the quarter-finals, Harris sustained a serious knee injury which barred him from playing in the competition as 3SC went all the way to finals before losing on penalties to Zamalek of Egypt.

For Harris, it was back to the treatment table as his career hit another snag. After receiving treatment locally without much success, he went back to Europe to seek medical help. He had corrective surgery on the troubled knee and had a short stint with Samsunspor in Turkey and another trial in China before finally settling down in Belgium where he played the last seven years of his career.

In between, he got married and is blessed with two handsome children who are his splitting image.
Though his active playing days are over, Harris still plays football now for recreation and is a qualified coach in charge of his local youth team.