In the past week….!
First, the good news.
‘Kawawa’, back from the dead!
Four days ago, I heard the laughter and happy voice again of Kadiri Ikhana, MON, former soldier, ex-Bendel Insurance FC and ex-Green Eagles player, and one of the most successful football coaches in Nigeria’s domestic football history.
He has returned to good health status after several weeks of an ordeal that saw him go through the hell of endless medical tests, minor surgeries and procedures, death scares and frightening periods in Intensive Care Units in hospitals in Irrua, Auchi and Abuja.
With the support of a few benevolent Nigerians, at costs running into tens of millions of Naira provided almost entirely by a Nigerian businessman that Kadiri Ikhana hardly knew before his ordeal started, Kawawa has come back from the dead.
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Good ‘Samaritan’ Businessman, Peter Dunia, responded to a call for help by Harrison Jalla and volunteered to foot the entire medical bills of Kadiri’s treatment in any specialist hospital anywhere in the world, to complement the initial funding and logistics support provided by Kadiri’s friend, Austin Braimah.
Fully now back on his feet and declared fit to return home, Kadiri has returned to his hotel room ‘home’ in Auchi where he is quietly recuperating, a happy man, relieved and grateful to the various doctors, nurses, family members, several Nigerians that reached out to him and volunteered to help, and several others that actually helped him during his health ordeal.
A few days ago, I spoke to Kadiri Ikhana as soon as he landed Auchi. He is fine again and will be my guest on my special radio program this weekend!
‘Slow Poison’ at 80!
I never knew until a few years ago that my colleague and team mate during the glory years of Shooting Stars FC in the mid-1970s was my senior by ‘miles’. I knew he was older but not by 7 years!!!!
Last Saturday, ‘Slow Poison’ Idowu Otubusen, celebrated the 80th anniversary of the day of his birth.
It was a massive celebration in Ibadan of the Prince from the Royal Otubusen family of Ijebu Ode.
We joined Shooting Stars FC at about the same time, and won the first continental club football championship in Nigeria’s history together in 1976.
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He was the central defender that ‘pocketed’ Africa’s deadliest striker at the time, Roger Milla of Tonnerre Kalala FC of Cameroon, during the two legs of the final matches in Ibadan and Yaoundé in December of 1976.
For an 80-year old retired footballer, ‘Slow’ is surely doing well and looking good.
Season of deaths!
Lookman Oshun was a colleague. We played together for Shooting Stars FC towards the end of my playing days.
He joined Shooting Stars FC from First Bank FC in Lagos and was a fringe player in the national team, the Green Eagles. He was very well known in the Lagos football scene of the 1980s, and he coached several clubs in the city, thereafter.
We were twin strikers in the finals of the 1984 African Club Championship in Lagos when Shooting Stars failed to capitalise on home advantage to create history and become the first club in Nigeria’s history to win the African Club Championship. The match was against Zamalek FC of Egypt.
Last week, Lookman died!
He was in his 60s.
NHF and CPR training!
On about the same day that Lookman passed on, another former player, newly appointed assistant coach of Shooting Stars FC, Akin Olowookere, suddenly slumped and died during a training session with his new team.
The incident underlines the importance of training of all sports persons and personnel on the application of CPR during emergencies such as this.
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The Nigerian Heart Foundation, NHF, ran such a program for over 1000 youths during the recent 2025 Youth Soccer Championship in Wasimi. It is an invaluable tool for all sports persons to have.
Akin was in his 50s.
Funerals!
Charles Bassey
A few days ago, my colleague in the 1980 AFCON squad was laid to rest in Eket, Akwa Ibom State.
Charles Bassey died a few hours after our Captain, ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu passed on
Christian Chukwu
I was in Enugu on Thursday and Friday to be a part of the week-long series of programs lined up by the government of Enugu State, friends, colleagues and the family of ‘Onyim’, my Captain, my friend and colleague in the Green Eagles, ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu.
The special Colloquium held at the Enugu Sports Club was a masterclass. Led by an erudite scholar and a great Orator, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, speaker after speaker walked onto the podium and regaled the audience with stories of heroism and a vision about Rangers International FC and the incomparable role of Christian Chukwu in shaping the reintegration of the Igbo into mainstream life after the Nigerian Civil war in 1970.
Tributes for the great legend poured down like rain as I sat listening and missing one of my own heroes as a football model!
Chairman will be laid to rest today in his village near Enugu.
Big Knock for Nigerian football!
Last weekend, was a dark period for domestic Nigerian football and its administrators.
I did not know what to make of the disastrous performance of the home-based Eagles against Sudan during CHAN 2024. It was simply inconceivable that a team assembled from Nigerian professional league, much touted as one of the best in Africa, with players being promoted by some media as good enough for the Super Eagles, and coached by the newly appointed manager of African-descent, in a match coming shortly after the federal government demonstrated unprecedented will to reward successful national teams with mind-boggling honours and gifts, could suddenly slump so badly and lose by 4-0 to, of all teams, Sudan! Su.. what?
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It is amongst Nigeria’s worst and most humiliating defeats in history, and Nigerians are not letting it just go without expressing their angst.
Even my childhood friend, Yakubu, usually a reticent man that hates to raise his voice above a whisper on most matters, could not hold back his disappointment on our private platform.
This is Yakubu: ‘When we complained about the emptiness and bankruptcy of NFF’s decision to hire the man from Mali as coach, their supporters accused us of crying wolf where there was none. They also called us apostles of doom, well-versed in theatrical and performative rhetorics.
In CHAN we are already out courtesy of the 4-0 drubbing by Sudan (yes, Sudan).
From all indications, no 2026 World Cup.
Na wa! No Naira rain also for the home-based Eagles’.
I have no comments to add.
This past week has been a matter of ‘Different strokes for different folks’, different things, good and bad, happening to different people, in this unscripted drama of life in Sport.
