Nigeria News
The Plight Of Ex-Footballers
Many Nigerian ex-footballers, who have meritoriously served the nation during their active days, are now living from hands to mouth.
Some of these former footballers are living in abject poverty despite giving their best for the country. Nigeria is one of the countries which quickly forget their heroes after they retire. Samuel Okwaraji, of blessed memory, died on 12 August, 1989 on the pitch of the National Stadium, Surulere during the 1990 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Angola. It is so sad that Okwaraji had been forgotten and his family has been in pains since then. Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, has not made any attempt to see how the family is coping after the death of Okwaraji, who died while serving his fatherland.
The same thing goes to Rashidi Yekini, who died last year. Some people were saying that the Ibadan-born player would not have died if he had received good medical care. Some were of the opinion that Yekini died because nobody looked for him when he was ill.
Commenting on Yekini’s death last year, former Super Eagles captain, Nwankwo Kanu tasked Nigerians to strive to honour their heroes when they are still alive instead of crying ‘out their eyes’ and making eulogies at their death.
“Those who gave everything in the service of their country must be accorded the desired attention at all times. Yekini suffered and died like an orphan. Today, everybody is lamenting over his death. Nobody cared for him while he was alive and suffering,” said Kanu, who believes that ex footballers need to be taken care of during their active days or when they are retired.
Sunny Ewodage, who played for the defunct Mandalas Football Club of Lagos in the early 60s explained that nobody cares about the welfare of ex footballers in this country. He said many former internationals have died due to starvation and neglect.
He disclosed that if not for the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, who helped him three years ago, he would have died.
“I served this country as a player and coach. I played for the defunct Mandals FC in those days. I coached VIP United, Gombe United and Jasper United before I retired. After I left the game, I was forgotten, but as God would not forget me, Governor Fashola came to my rescue.
“ I almost died then because things were so hard for me to the extent that my wife abandoned me and ran away with my two children. But I thank God today that Governor Fashola who I trained when he was at Igbobi College offered me a job,” Ewodage said.
Former Shooting Stars and Green Eagles’ Captain, Segun Odegbami, while delivering a lecture at the 3rd Best Ogedengbe Memorial Lecture held last year, said in his 6-page paper that “when footballers complete their assignment as players and retired from the game, they enter another phase of their journey completely different from the first.
“There is little or no provision in the system to adequately accommodate them, so they end up in jail of neglect, sickness, joblessness, depression, and premature death. The system not only forgets them, but forgets the family they leave behind.”
The ex-winger, however, described the life of a footballer after football, as a condemnation to a life of regret, painful old age and abject penury, affirming that, the picture he painted is actually the reality.
While reflecting on the ugly side of the footballers that are still living, Odegbami noted that their tales is like of the living dead.
“Many of us, heroes of our various generations in the chronology of football, are still alive but barely living through a journey that has turned from good to bad and now to the ugly,” he said.
He used himself as an example to better illustrate his points, saying “let me tell you about the physical damages you cannot see under these fine clothes. My thigh muscles, once taunt and toned like that of a racing horse, is now thin and drooping with wrinkles like the withered breast of an old woman”.
“The muscle cannot even now support my body weight properly anymore. So I walk wracking with pains and my limp. For over 10 years I have been having palpitations, my cholesterol level was high, I have been on a daily dose of pills I must take for the rest of my life in order not to go blind.
“There is pain in my waistline. There is more I suffer from. Yet I count myself as one of the lucky among our generation. Have you seen Adokie Amaisimaka lately? Or Emmanuel Okala, Kadiri Ikhana, Joe Erico, George Omokaro, Mike Okotie, Peter Fregene or Demola Adesina. All these great football heroes are alive, but every single of them has become physically challenged,” he said.
Nigerian former footballers during the Battle of the Legend game at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos
In his own comment, Friday Expo, a member of Green Eagles told P.M.NEWS Sports recently in Lagos that ex footballers are being neglected in this country. He said many former players who have served this country in the past died as a result of poverty.
He also thanked Governor Fashola for giving job to some ex footballers in Lagos. He said Fashola deserves to be commended because he has rehabilitated so many former players who have lost hope in the leadership of the country.
“I am very grateful to Governor Fashola because I met him in 2009 at the All Stars Football Club. I told him what I was passing through then. I’m happy today that he gave me job as the Stadium Manager of Elegbata Playground, Apogbon. I want to say that many of my colleagues that are based in Lagos have benefited in one way or the other from Fashola’s government and we will ever be grateful to him. May God bless his family and government,” he said.
Some of the ex footballers advised governments at various levels to appoint all the ex internationals as coaches for schools in the primary to tertiary institutions instead of giving jobs to only people who have certificate in Physical Health Education or Sports Management.
Some were of the opinion that government should give a stipend to ex footballers who are idle or suffering so as to take care of themselves.
Reacting to the poor welfare of the ex footballers in the country, Association of Professional Footballers of Nigeria, APFON, said the body is doing everything in its power to alleviate the suffering of these former players.
Secretary General of the association, Austin Popo explained that lack of funds is one of the major factors militating against the progress of the association. Popo said that it is unfortunate that none of the Nigerian players who are plying their trade abroad ready to help the association in terms of regular funding .
“Apart from Obinna Nsofor, who gave us N2 million two years ago, no single professional player is ready to assist us. We are aware of the challenges our ex footballers are facing in this country, but we cannot do much because we are cash strapped at the moment,” he said.
Popo disclosed that arrangements have been concluded to organise player’s union match between All Stars Edo and Delta State on 12 June at the Samuel Ogbemudiah Stadium, Benin. The one day event will be an avenue to raise funds and at the same time address the welfare of Nigerian players both home and abroad.
The association will also stage another player’s union match in Yenegoa, Bayelsa State where All Stars of Delta and All Stars of Bayelsa will play each other.
Popo said the associations has started embarking on Players’ Advocacy Drive Programme to educate the players and club owners the benefit being a member of the APFON. Popo said they have been in nine states especially where the premier league clubs and professional club are located.
He said the association is planning to organise Club’s Captain Conference on 20 June in Oshogbo, Osun State where issues affecting Nigerian footballers (both former and current) will be collectively tackled.
Popo noted that Nigeria Football Federation NFF needs to assist the association from the funds it usually receives from FIFA and CAF to take care of the union’s challenges.
“Like I said before, we are yet to receive any grant from individuals, organisations or governments and it is sad that we don’t give attention to our ex footballers in this country. APFON will continue to strive to meet some challenges of the players,” he said.
—Sunday Akintoye
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: PM News
DisNaija.Com publishes regular posts on Nigeria News, Nigerian Newspapers, Online Nigeria Gist.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Nigeria News
Follow @Dis_Naija
Your Opinion Counts. Be sure To Leave A Comment, If You Have Any.
Please Like, Share or Tweet. Your Support Is Appreciated.
The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
Buhari Will Win In 2019: US Institute
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has predicted that President Muhammadu Buhari will win the 2019 election. The organisation...
Why Buhari Deserves Second Term – Lai Mohammed
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said that President Muhammadu Buhari deserved second term election because,...
Atiku Presidential Campaign Council: PDP Releases List of Members
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday released the list of party members to handle the campaign team of the...
Obasanjo Forgives Atiku, Endorses Him For President
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday said he has reviewed his stance on not backing his former deputy for the...
Buhari, Atiku In Battle Of Integrity Over 2019 Poll
THE brickbats continued yesterday between President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. The All Progressives Congress (APC) and...