Kaita: Promise was a tough hard working player

HARD-WORKING combative former Nigeria midfielder, Sani Kaita, has paid an emotional tribute to his late former teammate Isaac Promise who reportedly collapsed and died at his apartment gym in Austin-Texas in the USA on Wednesday.

Both Kaita and Promise were constant as the proverbial Northern Star in the national U-20 team that won the Silver medal at the 2005 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Holland as well as the U-23 team that won Silver medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Football Tournament.

The 33-year-old Kaita said he was crestfallen following the unfortunate death of a player he described as a workaholic dating back to their days together in the national team set up.

“He (Promise) was great guy,” Kaita told The NationSport. “His death is a loss to Nigerians especially his family and close friend; I was really sad to hear the news.”

Speaking further, Kaita said Promise was an embodiment of leadership, hard work and sportsmanship during their years together as youth internationals.

“He was a great leader and one of the nice blokes I’ve played with,” Kaita said.

“Whenever we had a tough game, he use to tell me in Hausa language: ‘dodo aikin kane wannan’ which means, ‘this is work.’

“I recalled the way he behaved after our two final losses to Argentina in Holland and Beijing and when other players were crying, he wiped their tears.

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“That’s the kind of  person he was . He was tough bloke. I used to call him ‘Maza’ which means ‘a great skipper’ in Hausa language.”

Kaita said his late colleague needed to be immortalised since he was one of the few players to have captained all levels of the national teams aside the Super Eagles.

It would be recalled that Promise was captain of the Nigeria U20 squad that won the 2005 African Youth Championship (later renamed U20 Cup of Nations) in Benin Republic with a flourish and finished as runner-up at the FIFA U20 World Cup in The Netherlands the same year, losing narrowly to Argentina (complete with Lionel Messi) in the final.

He also captained the Nigeria U23 team that won silver medals at the men’s football tournament of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, again finishing second behind Lionel Messi-led Argentina. He previously captained the U17 team in 2003.