Once upon a time, handball was one of the crowd pullers in Nigeria. That was a time when the famous Grasshoppers of Owerri and Niger United strode the stage in Africa despite the heroics of North African teams. It was a period when Nigerian teams held their own against other teams in Africa, with Niger United and Grasshoppers winning many laurels in the continent.

Just as present-day footballers, Nigerian handballers in the 1970s up the early 1990s were so good that foreign clubs constant came to pick the talents for their sides.

One of such players, whose exploits locally and internationally made the headlines is Plateau State-born Nadabo Ibrahim Dabson, popularly called the ‘Finest’ during his playing days by his peers.
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Described as unarguably the best African jump shooter and the country’s number one, Dabson, who stand at 6.4,’ was so good in handball that he represented Nigeria in many international competitions, winning many individual and team laurels.

Reminiscing on his career, ‘The Finest,’ who currently works with the Plateau State Sports Council as a handball coach, says his only regret was not being able to qualify Nigeria for the Olympics. Blaming politics for the failure and the current poor state of the game, he said he was forced to bow out of the game early due to frustration from those in charge of the sport.

Narrating his sojourn in handball, Dabson said he was initially involved in football in his primary school days before switching over to handball.

According to him, his parents never fancied sports until because they feared it would harm his education, but they were forced to accept his decision to stick to sports when they saw that it did not affect his grades.

“I first got involved in sports playing football right from my primary school days at the Township Primary School in Jos. Then in my secondary school at Government Secondary School, Kuru, in Plateau State, I moved over to handball out of the special interest I had for the game. Nobody discovered me; I stopped football after watching handball in Jos and I went straight to meet the coach handling handball to join his team.

“My parents were in full support of handball and so also was my late elder brother, Muhammed Sani Ibrahim, but they were reluctant in the first place.

“They encouraged us afterward after we promised them that nothing would hinder us our education. The agreement was that anytime we failed or refused to take our studies very seriously, they should stop us participating in sports.

“Ibrahim was a famous football goalkeeper back then; he kept for the defunct Nigerian Standard FC of Jos, Raccah Rovers FC of Kano and First Bank FC of Lagos. We lost him in December 1988 on his way to BCC Lions of Gboko his new club. His death was a big shock and a setback, as he and my mother were instrumental to my taking handball as a career. His death happened when I was away in Tunis representing Nigeria with the national junior team at the African Junior Championship.”
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One of his memorable moments as a handballer, he said, was in Cotonou in 1986 when his club, Niger United of Minna, won the African Club Championship.

“My most memorable moment as a local player was when we won the African Club Championships in Cotonou with my club, Niger United of Minna in 1986. We were the first Nigerian team to achieve that feat.

“However, as a professional, I will never forget when the club I played for won the double, the league and cup competition in Turkey. But the one I cherish most was qualifying Nigeria for its first senior men’s World Championship in Alexandria in Egypt. That was a big feat because Nigeria became the first country in the sub-Saharan Africa to achieve that,” he said.

He also recalls an incident that almost drove him prematurely out of the game while he was playing in Turkey.

“This happened when a coach in Turkey said he never wanted a black man in his team.

“The racist comments from Coach Manolo Laguna in Turkey were regrettable. But that spurred me into doing great exploits in the Turkish league, where I won several awards, as well as the hearts of the fans.

“There was a particular match where I put up a sterling performance and my club won 20-18. The same coach who rejected me before later asked for my signature for his team. Then I had opportunity to tell that I never like playing for white people.”

While still playing handball, Dabson went to Universite De Tunis Hamadi Bourguiba Institute De Lang and Cyprus College, now Cyprus University and Ksar Hilel Institute of Sports in Tunis to fulfill his parents’ desires.

According to him, he also went to other schools and Institutes to add to the knowledge he had acquired both within and outside the country. He is a graduate of the Nigeria Institute of Sports in Lagos.

Now working as a coach, Dabson is saddened by the fact that handball has been so neglected that Nigeria hardly competes with other nations in Africa.

He revealed that a group, the Veterans, has been trying to resuscitate the sport from the doldrums, while pleading that those in charge will do something to arrest the situation.
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“For the game of handball to move forward in the country, a lot needs to be done. Many of us were frustrated out of the game prematurely when we had more years to give.

“One of major reason why the sport has gone down abysmally is because the right people are not given the opportunity to run the game. Appointment of the head of the sports commission by the Federal Government is another issue, which has not helped matters. A situation where you ask quacks to coach a team, that is, those who never went to coaching course to take our team to a major tournament is unfortunate. And the most annoying part is how they organise competitions for our players.

“They always assemble players each time a tournament comes around and forget6s the game when there is no tournament. It does not augur well for this country and it diminishes the exploits of some of the good players this country has produced.”