Nigeria, Aug. 11 -- On 6 December 1977, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's military Head of State, received a group of young men from the east who had come to present him with a trophy won in the field of football contest against the rest of Africa. They were members of a football team known as Rangers International Football Club of Enugu.

The previous day, led by the charismatic Christian Chukwu, by an aggregate margin of five goals to two, they had beaten arguably the most legendary generation of footballers from Cameroon's Canon Sportif de Yaounde to win the African Cup Winners Cup. On their way to the title, they toppled the defending champions, IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan, who won the title the previous year by beating Tonnerre Kalara F...