New head coach of Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) side Plateau United; Abdu Maikaba has told www.aclsports.com he has no immediate plans of signing players of his former employers, Akwa United for his new employers.
Maikaba spent two years with Southern Nigeria side Akwa United, during which he led them to the 2017 AITEO Cup title and was on Friday unveiled as the new helmsman at Plateau United, league winners in 2017. Maikaba replaces Kennedy Boboye who left Plateau at the expiration of his contract.
Nigeria Under-20 assistant coach, Maikaba is respected in some quarters for working against the NPFL norm by taking only one player from his former club Wikki Tourist to Akwa – Alhassan Ibrahim -. He is also hoping to work with the existing players at Plateau.
“For now, I am thinking to work with what I have on ground,” began Maikaba to www.aclsports.com on Friday evening.
“But if I will have a player maybe coincidentally, his contract has expired with Akwa United and is willing to come here, I will not say no. More especially if he can help in facilitating the building up of my philosophy here, then I will consider such,” added the teacher.
The 2017/18 NPFL season was called off abruptly after it seemed that the conclusion would not be guaranteed in time before the Confederation of African Football (CAF) tournaments registration deadline. The situation led to Lobi Stars being given the honours of representing the league in next season’s Champions League.
Maikaba enumerated the objectives of his new employers and suggested rather cheekily that Plateau United are still the reigning league champions.
“The team has its own objectives, which is winning the league back to back because as far as Plateau United is concerned, there was no champion last season so they are still thinking they are the champions and they will win it next season.
“That is one of the objectives. The second objective is to now make sure they do well in the continent with the experience they got last time and with my experience as a coach in continental tournaments. We want to improve Nigeria’s standings in CAF competitions,” the former FC Abuja handler enumerated.
Maikaba will start his Plateau reign when the next league season in Nigeria commences. The season is tentatively scheduled to start in November with a view to aligning with the new CAF calendar which is also tailored towards achieving unanimity with the global football calendar.
