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How mother of 4 set up football academy in Jos

Umma Hassan Mohammed was awarded ‘Best Badminton Player’ in an inter secondary school badminton competition in 1994. She represented her school, Government Girls Secondary School,…

Umma Hassan Mohammed was awarded ‘Best Badminton Player’ in an inter secondary school badminton competition in 1994. She represented her school, Government Girls Secondary School, Jogana, in Kano State, and was one of three students selected to represent the country in badminton overseas. However, her leaving in a typical conservative Hausa community in Jos North, with conformist parents, Umma missed that chance and soon enough traded badminton for marriage.   

However, over two decades later, marriage and four kids have not weakened that enthusiasm for sports in Umma. She has rekindled that passion by giving many youths the opportunity to make their mark in football and other areas. 

“I love badminton, but I decided to establish a football academy because I noticed the youths prefer football: it keeps them busy and it distracts them from drugs and other vices,” she said.  

The name Umma is now becoming popular and mostly synonymous with youth empowerment among youths in Plateau State.   

The academy, known as Ummah Hassan Football Academy, was established about 14 months ago and it enlists youths from 17 years and above in the categories: Under 17, Under 19 and Under 23, and the academy more than 90 players. 

The academy, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered, trains on the University of Jos football field but is set to move to its new and permanent site in the next few months. 

“It is free to join the academy, and we sponsor the education of some of the youths. We bought a vast land along Naraguta area in Plateau State to serve as our permanent site. We want to ensure it becomes a sports complex with hostels and gym for the players,” she said. 

Some of the youths in the academy have been to Cyprus while others are in Lagos and Abuja for onward movement to Ukrain, Tanzania and South Africa. Even at that, Umma said her major challenge is that many football agents who she had paid to get some of her players outside the country had been unable to fulfill their agreement. 

Though the focus of the academy is youths in Plateau State, the mother of four explains that, “The thing with football is that you can’t limit it to a particular area or people, it has the tendency of attracting people from all parts of the country.”    

Captain of the academy, Sani Maina, told Daily Trust that many of the players had been into various illicit drugs before joining the academy, adding that, “Surprisingly, most of them no longer take illicit drugs, they have learned to transfer that boredom into football, and they are now living better lives.”  

Maina is optimistic that in the near future the academy would produce players capable of representing Nigeria in Under 17, 20 and 23 tournaments.

One of the academy’s midfielders, Ibrahim Ibrahim, who is set to travel to Cyprus for a trial during the mid season of January, expressed enthusiasm that a club in Cyprus would likely sign him if he performed well. “My life has changed positively,” he said.  

However, it is not only in the area of sports that Umma is making her mark, she has equally become popular in the transport industry and is rumoured to own over 50 per cent of the tricycles plying the streets of Jos. With hire purchase agreements, she said she had made dozens of youths proud owners of tricycles. 

“Sometimes you find a lot of graduates with no jobs and some of them have dependants: they have wives and children, and the transport business is one of the simplest ways of earning money. 

“So I usually buy the tricycles and we sign agreement on how much they will remit periodically. After a specific period, when I make back the money for the tricycle and some profit, the tricycles become their own,” she said.

She further said a business she started with motorcycles 11 years ago had earned her over 200 tricycles plying the city of Jos.

“At the time the past administration in Plateau banned motorcycles, I had about 125 on ground. I think I am the first female to buy a Keke NAPEP in Plateau State, and what we do is that we hand them over to the youths in groups to create a sense of competition among them,” she said.

With all these efforts at trying to better the lives of youths, one would think Umma would be regarded as a role model in her immediate environment. However, her generosity and sense of devotion to the cause of youths has sometimes been questioned and her resources even labelled “blood money”.   

“That has happened to me a lot. During one of the Jos crises, my brother went missing and many people also went missing during that period. My father also died 36 days later, so some people started saying I had given them out for rituals. My father had been ill for more than 10 years and we had done a lot to get him the right medical care, yet people said I sacrificed my dad and brother for money.”

She said such unfounded insinuations had in the past devastated her, forcing her to withdraw from several community engagements. Now undeterred, Umma said she had developed a thick skin and won’t let anyone smear her image or discourage her from doing good and changing lives. 

“I thought deep about it and realised that whatever you find yourself doing, if it is because of God, then it is better to ignore all the rumours. I also know that everything in life comes with its own challenges, but by God’s grace I will overcome them,” she said. 

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