By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Rangers International Football Club of Enugu has just lifted the 2025/26 Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) trophy.
This marks a record-equaling 9th time of winning the competition by Nigeria’s arguably most celebrated and supported club.
The darling club that rose from the ashes of the Nigeria-Biafra war in 1970 also won the competition in the 2023/24 season.
It was a nail-biting finish to the season as Rangers coached by the resourceful sweat merchant Fidelis Ilechukwu had a relentless neck-and-neck battle with Rivers United under the charge of Super Eagles great Finidi George.
Rangers needed to win her last match against Ikorodu City in Lagos, and victory came through a brace of goals from skipper Chidiebere Nwobodo in a pulsating 2-1 triumph.
In the end, Rangers had 68 points to emerge winners as against the 67 points of second-placed Rivers United.
It was indeed a crest of honour for the personable Barrister Amobi Paulinus Ezeaku, Rangers International’s G.M/CEO.
As Rangers players and officials dominate the streets in their victory parades with AFRINVEST emblazoned on their jerseys, it’s crucial to recall that back in October, 2023, the legendary football club signed a sponsorship deal with Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited, a leading financial services and investment management holding company operating out of Nigeria with a focus on Africa.
Rangers and Afrinvest are therefore joined together as unstoppable champions destined to rule the turf.
The words of the inimitable Group Managing Director of Afrinvest, Prince Ike Chioke, at the signing of the sponsorship deal are forever inspirational, thusly: “As a boy born in Enugu and as someone who has supported the state for many years I am particularly delighted. This partnership isn’t just for Afrinvest and the branding partnership for Rangers. What it is, is about the players, about the opportunity to uplift a group of football talents who can in turn become the beacon of hope and restoration for many other young talents. We are wholeheartedly committed to Rangers. Rangers is an embodiment of excellence and we need to continue to foster that. So a victory for Rangers is a victory for all of us, victory for our human capacity to succeed.”
For Prince Chioke, the victory of Rangers is a victory for all because Rangers is not just a football club but a movement.
When the Nigeria-Biafra war ended in January 1970, there was gloom in Igboland. Even as the then Head of State General Yakubu Gowon, who has just published a controversial autobiography, made the famous announcement of “No Victor, No Vanquished”, the vanquished ones knew themselves as they sauntered back into Nigeria, hungry and broken, after the end of the Biafra struggle.
The legendary football administrator, Jerry Enyeazu, strongly felt that football could lift the spirit. Enyeazu was ably backed by the legal luminary BSC Nzenwa and the financial muscle of Chief AW Ibe for the club eventually named Enugu Rangers to be birthed on January 29, 1970, and baptized on February 25, 1970.
The eminent Nigerian football administrators of that time, notably the iconic Oyo Orok Oyo, at the end of the war stressed that a team from the erstwhile rebel section must be involved for a true national champion to emerge.
The Nigerian Army football team, Lagos Garrison, was the reigning kings that had to be matched up with the team from the East. In the epoch-making match, the boys from the East defeated the Nigerian Army team 2-1, a clear case of the vanquished turning the table on the victors. A key player from the Nigerian Army team, Paul “Wonder Boy” Hamilton, recalled that the then Col Olusegun Obasanjo was so enraged when he saw the army team in the office of the team coordinator Col George Innih that he nearly had them flogged for “losing to those hungry boys”.
The eastern boys may have been hungry but they were quite determined such that one of their star players, Dominic Nwobodo, who would eventually become a Rangers legend, had his head broken and bloodied but doggedly completed the match with a completely bandaged head that earned him the nickname “Alhaji”.
The Rangers team truly lived up to the club’s motto “From Difficulties to the Heights” and the everlasting appendage “Never-Say-Die!”
The team represented Nigeria in the 1971 African Cup of Champion Clubs, reaching the quarter-finals, only to lose to ASEC Mimosas of Cote d’Ivoire.
The pioneer Rangers team of 1970 was made up of Cyril Okosieme in goal, Ernest Ufele and Johnny “Wheeler” Nwosu as full backs, Peter Okeke as defensive midfielder, the skipper Godwin Achebe as central defender with Luke “Jazz Bukana” Okpala as his partner, while the forward players were Mathias Obianika, Kenneh Abana, Dominic Nwobodo, Chukwuma Igweonwu and Shedrack Ajaero.
The founding fathers of Rangers formed the club as a private concern but the government administered by Chief Ukpabi Asika eventually took over by offering financial and sundry logistic support. Rangers had thus far been owned by the East Central State Government, the old Anambra State, and now the Enugu State Government, but the support base transcends geographies.
Strong leadership in chairmanship, coaching and captaincy aided the successes of Rangers over the years. After the founding leaders Jerry Enyeazu and BSC Nzenwa, charismatic Jim Nwobodo took over as chairman before becoming Governor of the old Anambra State.
The founding coach was the iconic Nigerian centre-back Dan Anyiam who was later succeeded by another influential centre-back Godwin Achebe.
It’s remarkable that crack centre-half Dominic Ezeani who had displaced Skipper Achebe in the gold-winning national team, the Green Eagles, at the 1973 All-Africa Games staged in Lagos equally took over from the legendary Achebe as captain of Rangers, and then led the team to winning the double, that is, the League and Challenge Cup, in 1974.
Skipper Christian Chukwu continued the winning streak. From 1974 to 1984, Rangers captured the F.A Cup four times and won the national league title a then record six times.
Rangers International recorded the feat of being double champions (F.A Cup and League winners) back-to-back for an unprecedented three years in a row – 1974, 1975, and 1976.
It is also a record that Rangers represented Nigeria in more continental and sub-regional competitions than any other Nigerian football club. The club played in the CAF Champions Cup in 1975, 1976, 1978, 1982, 1983, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2017, as well as competing in the CAF Cup Winners Cup/Confederation Cup in 1977, 1984, 2007, 2019 as well as WAFU Cup in 1979.
Rangers International won the CAF Winners’ Cup in 1977.
The hope is that with the solid backing of Afrinvest Rangers International will eventually win the coveted CAF Champions League title, the one title that has eluded the club thus far.
Rangers International F.C takes pride of place as the only Nigerian football club that has never been relegated from the top division of the league.
After winning the 1984 F.A Challenge Cup, Rangers suffered a long period of title drought that lasted all of 32 years until winning the 2016 Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) trophy with Imama Amapakabo as the coach.
In 2018, Rangers won the FA/AITEO Cup in a titanic match that has come to be dubbed famously as “The Asaba Miracle.”
The honours list of Rangers International is as follows: F.A/Federation Cup Champions – 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, 1983, 2018; League Champions – 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, 1982, 1984, 2016, 2024 and 2026; CAF Cup Winners Champions – 1977; CAF Champions League Finalist – 1975; F.A Cup Finalist – 13 times.
Given the backing and sponsorship of Afrinvest, winning the coveted 2026/27 CAF Champions League is a charming possibility for the lionized Rangers International FC of Enugu.
Never Say Die!
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author
