espn: Anytime ders a thread dats connected to yorubas or hausas..one fin dats certain is dat igbos here on nairaland wld say sumfin negative abt it..whether its gud or bad..buh if its a thread abt igbos..al dey do is to praise der people..buh u wld neva see any yoruba or hausa to say sumfin bad..u guyz v a big prob..even wen it cums to religious issue..u wld hardly see a yoruba guy or ga who is a xtainl say sumfin abt d opposite religion..buh u can be sure of gettin negative comments frm igbos(xtain)..I guess dis is mere infiriority complex..nonsense!

Don't mind Onye_ngbu....... All igbos are not that way.... But you will surely find his kind in every tribe....just ignore him.....

I av go tru wat everybody av said but i just want to had this from my xperience concerning ow his family said he send all his tenant away...he burned all his certificate...his cloth...walking on d street bare footed..giving people money...i want u people to goggle out this MENTALLY DISODER disease Called SHIZOPHRENIA...after u go tru what some people wrote about ow it started with their people n ow they av been given them drug that av control it...i tink when u do this u will no more about what happen to YEkini...

espn: Anytime ders a thread dats connected to yorubas or hausas..one fin dats certain is dat igbos here on nairaland wld say sumfin negative abt it..whether its gud or bad..buh if its a thread abt igbos..al dey do is to praise der people..buh u wld neva see any yoruba or hausa to say sumfin bad..u guyz v a big prob..even wen it cums to religious issue..u wld hardly see a yoruba guy or ga who is a xtainl say sumfin abt d opposite religion..buh u can be sure of gettin negative comments frm igbos(xtain)..I guess dis is mere infiriority complex..nonsense!

...chei! @espn u can lie oh! May God 4give ur lies abt Yorubas not throwin banters...no bullets...at Igbo and Hausa eff ups. Atleast u can ask @ bluetooth, @ekt-bear, @rhino...even @dayokanu....to mention but a few. I refuse to call it a complex....guess its a naija thing....and sumtimes it brings some humour to d sad minds and smile to d wrinkled faces we carry daily.

@topic....I watched Odegbami yesterday. He may b right buh d ex-footballers....including Segun who is now almost a UN/World Bank ambassador 4 just having played football with some education....did not do anything 4 a suffering colleague, a depressed, dieing hero! Now Rashidi is a friend in death....Pathetic!

In the light of the topic, many of the responses here are irritatingly disgusting!

@bisiaet
May God bless you.

This is Segun Odegbami's article I read almost a month ago. The supersports link is also below it.


RASHIDI YEKINI IS BACK!!!

You better believe it – Rashidi Yekini is back!

I doubt if there is any African with any interest in African football that will not be familiar with that name. He is that footballer that scored Nigeria’s first ever World Cup goal and tore at the net behind the Bulgarian goalkeeper in a scream that reverberated around the world.
Only Lauren Pokou before him (with 14 goals) and Samuel Eto (with 15 goals) after him, have scored more goals than him (with 12 goals) at the African Cup of Nations. So good was Rashidi Yekini that he became the first Nigerian to be awarded CAF’s African Player of the Year in 1994.

With such an awesome reputation in football it is not understood why since he retired from the game almost 10 years ago, very little has been heard about him or seen of him. Interestingly, it is entirely his choice that he remained as he had been, shunning all social events, never granting interviews, and avoiding any interactions that could bring him in contact with the public outside the football field.

Many major media houses around the world had, at one time or the other, sought to work with him, or document him, or even just showcase him. Many business organisations would do anything to get him to be their face. He was, perhaps, Africa’s most sought-after football figure until time took its toll and he started to recede in the minds of the public, to be replaced by newer but not bigger stars. All Rashidi needed to do was cough loudly and the football media would come scrambling to cover it. He never did! This has created a mystique around him, plus all manner of speculation about his life, his state of mind and his activities in recent years, some of which have been worrisome enough for even respected Nigerian journalist and Sunday Tribune columnist, Uncle Fabio Lanipekun, to raise a public alarm some time ago. Yet, the mystery deepened with Rashidi choosing to maintain a stoic silence and to continue to live his life in the quietude of his own narrow interest.

To say that he is an enigma is an understatement. Only a handful of people have access to him, so only fewer still can penetrate his cocooned existence. For those of us that knew him from the very beginning none of this sounds or looks too strange. Outside of the football field he had always been that way – elusive, reclusive, timid and innocent! For some reason he respected and trusted me to the extent that we maintained a relationship of occasional communication through the years. We also did one or two things together like his return to club football at Gateway Football Club several years after his official retirement from football. Only I could have convinced him to make such a ‘come back’ and he did without hesitation or even negotiation. Part of his wages remain in the treasury of the Ogun State government till this day waiting for when he would come, ask for it and collect it. It may remain there forever. That is Rashidi. He sees the world only through his own unusual prism.

The impact of his return to domestic football was never exploited by those at the helm of Nigerian football to illuminate the path to tread in developing followership of the league and a return to the culture of weekend football as a family recreational pastime. Rashidi Yekini’s presence in the league, in that one season that he played (2006) packed stadia across the country everywhere it was reported he was going to play.

Rashidi and I relate well because we have some things in common that have cemented our relationship through the years.
He joined me in Shooting Stars FC of Ibadan in what was to become the last season of my football career. He was very comfortable with me because we both spoke the Hausa language (which was his first language having been born and bred in Northern Nigeria like me). Like me he started his football in the north and was influenced by it. Like me he played and not necessarily for the money but for his deep love for the game. Rashidi’s life was totally and completely wrapped around a foot ball. He was in his full element and expressiveness only on the field of play with a ball at his feet. All he wanted was to do was play all day long. He did not understand player-politics. He just loved football too much. The training ground was his world. On it he came alive and shone like the mid-day sun. Outside it he almost did not exist. He would retreat into his own world, a narrow impregnable world shut to all except the two friends he had (Akinsola and Aina) who had come to Shooting Stars FC with him from his Kaduna Club. He was never comfortable with the Ibadan people, the media or even supporters. Very few people knew him, understood him or could even penetrate his social shield. Thats why his family life and his business are completely shielded by him and unknown by all but one or two people.

Rashidi came to Ibadan very humble. He was coming to join a start-studded team that he could only compliment, not dominate, which was what he was doing in the little-known UNTL FC team he was coming from. In Kaduna even as a young 22 year old, he was worshipped. In Ibadan he needed to join a long queue of mega-stars including Best Ogedegbe, Mudashiru Lawal, Tunde Bamidele, Felix Owolabi, Wakilu Oyenuga, Olumide Banjo, (all national team players) and so on.

So, in coming down south to Ibadan his greatest challenge would have been me and I am not sure he knew it too, because I was his hero and he was only too delighted to be playing side by side with me in the same team. Any striker, any goalscorer coming to join Shooting Stars FC or even the national team at that time in the early 1980s would have to contend with the humble records I had set in the space of 8 years for both club and country. Rashidi walked straight into that challenge and in a few short years had surpassed them all. In the innocence of his heart and mine at the time we met neither competition nor rivalry existed in our relationship. I was a friend willing to help his game, to show him a few tricks, to supply him the crosses and passes he fed on in front of goal and to make him a master on the field – confident, focussed, comfortable and deadly. I became his unofficial, on-the-field tag-team partner in the destruction of opposing teams.
Rashidi Yekini and I, in 1984, during the African Club championship campaign, became goalscoring machines. We were unstoppable until a knee injury crippled me during the first leg semi-final match against Sekode of Togo and blunted the Shooting Stars attack. The team never recovered from my injury and Rashidi also lost that essential edge. We eventually lost in the final match to the great Zamalek of Egypt in what was to be my worst and last match for club and country. He never quite understood it himself at the time but Rashidi soon regained his cutting edge again and the rest of his career almost turned out to be that of chasing the records in Nigerian football that I had set.

Before his emergence on the scene, I had held most of the major Nigerian and African domestic records – winner of FA Cup and National league trophies, highest goalscorer in the national league for two seasons, highest goalscorer in the African Cup of Nations (6 goals in two competitions), highest goalscorer for the national team in the history of Nigerian football, first winner of a continental club competition (the Africa Cup – winners Cup), and the only Nigerian football player to have come closest to be named (there was no voting at the time) Africa’s Player of the Year (third in 1977 and second in 1980). It took 10 years to achieve it but Rashidi Yekini did well, re-wrote every single football record in the country, and did even much more – he had a very successful professional career abroad and played at two World Cup finals! For a part of his illustrious career I was there with him, a silent guide.

When I became the Team Manager of the Super Eagles (the country has not had any since then) to the 1994 African Cup of Nations and USA ’94 World Cup, I worked very closely with him guiding him through the minefield of the power-play and player-rivalry that eventually almost destroyed that great team. So, Rashidi trusted me. That relationship has sustained till now. Thats why where all others have failed to get him to open up about his life I may have done slightly better.

So, some four weeks ago, for the first time since 2006, we arranged to meet and have a conversation again. We did in Ibadan, just the two of us in the seclusion of Onireke Guest House, far from the madding crowd and away, for the first time, from the football field! What a refreshing and reassuring experience that was.

Without going into the details of our conversation (I leave that for another day) I want to say that Rashidi Yekini is likely to be back to football very soon doing what he knows best. At almost 40 you will not find him in the colours of any football club, no! But the people will have the opportunity to watch the master at play again on the field re-enacting his magical football skills amongst the youths that need to learn the art of controlling the ball in flight, shielding the ball, racing with the ball, lurking behind defences, bending the ball or shooting with both feet, and entertaining audiences all over Africa. Those were the things Rashidi Yekini did as a player. They are the same things he is going to start to do as football’s ambassador once again. Africa, watch out for this new chapter in the life of the one known as ‘Gangling’!

http://mathematical7.com/the-return-of-rashidi-yekini-the-goal-scoring-machine/


http://mobi.supersport.com/football/blogs/segun-odegbami/The_Return_of_Rashidi_Yekini

Dede1: God, please forbid the bad thing. Yoruba peep’s hunger for money had led to the death of a MON. After watching the Yoruba people denigrate others on the love for money, I am stunned to read that Yoruba can not only run mad but kill because of money (owo).

hater,you are still having the hang over of the civil war. Keep hating,it,s good for your health. Olosi alakori.

IYA NGBALI: hater,you are still having the hang over of the civil war. Keep hating,it,s good for your health. Olosi alakori.

I do not hate any human being but I detest certain moronic demeanor exhibited by certain humans. Of course, Nigeria/Biafra war shall ever remain a historical artifact parlayed to jolt any dullness in my academic exercise. I have a very good life, omo kekere ni oloshi.

sleazyrick: I agree wit you my brother ..his family should be investigated including the clinic he was taking to,and why was his burial rushed without aautopsy for somebody of his status..cos i hav seen a lot of mad people who sleep on dis cold lagos streets none of dem don die ..for those wey kill am make dey no die again na

well said my brother

[quote author=purefella][/quote]

Nigerian Government are bunch of crooks , Help someone when he was alive instead you will give him a befitting burial

Dede1: God, please forbid the bad thing. Yoruba peep’s hunger for money had led to the death of a MON. After watching the Yoruba people denigrate others on the love for money, I am stunned to read that Yoruba can not only run mad but kill because of money (owo).

av bin noticing u...u dnt normally spit out sense...must u tribalise evritin?

Yekini was killed- segun odegbami' yekini was killed- segun odegbami' yekini was killed- segun odegbami... Have u not heard abt autopsy do u have any.. Or are u with any evidence that shows he was killed... Yekini ''RIP'' jare...

na wao! even a thread on the death of Yekini can mutate into a sparring arena for insult ready curse rendering NLanders...im amazed.

sad

^^^ Musiwa, are you part of Illuminati?

@ Chiova
c u n ur grama. U nobe igbo pesin stop pretending 2 be one. "eath of an hero" waz dat al u learnt abt d relationship btw vowels n d alphabet h? Go bak 2 ojota primary skul jor.[quote


Pls Mr English professor can you tell me the meaning of jargons you wrote above? Does what I quoted above look like English Language or what

Anyway i'm not here to join issue because the issue at hand is a bit sensitive and need a sensitive people with sensitive brain to comtribute sensitively and not tribal jargons or c, n, waz,dat, bak nonsense.

Those who bundle Yekini forcefully in the name of healing should be investigated and prosecuted that is my own view. Period!!!

ZUBY77: Yea, he was in a shirt tussle with osaze odemwingie on who will be leading the Super Eagles attack. He also wanted the captain band from YOBO: all this are enough evidence that motivated his opponents to whisker him away in the middle of the night and murdered him.
Mr Segun Odegbami, havent you heard of autopsy before? What did it say?

please don't trivialise this issue

.

The life of Yekini should be a lesson to upcoming footballers and sports administrators. You are celebrated when you are useful and dumped when there is a replacement.
All sportmen should invest their wealth before retirement. They should also acquire basic education. Routine communications and social networking is very important.
Finally, retired sportmen should be encouraged to be involved in sports administration. The involvement of politicians in sports administration is a major setback for sports development in the country.
Yekini died because he was neglected by sportmen, sports administrators and fans.

cyril83: av bin noticing u...u dnt normally spit out sense...must u tribalise evritin?

If I do not make sense to you, please blame it on Nigeria. Nigeria does not make sense as nation yet you resourcefully expect the inhabitants to make sense. Have you seen where a sheep begets a lion?

Only your friend knows your secrets and only he who can reveal it. - who the cap fits, let him wear it. RIP!

I also believe Yekini was not mad, he only had moments of fits in 2010 when he lost his lifetime savings with his his late friend. Who would lose lifetime investment and not behave abnormally for sometime? He had moved on.

I also share Mathematical's sentiments: something must have gone wrong in the family's forced, unorthodox 'treatment' of him, leading to his death.

Dede1:
If I do not make sense to you, please blame it on Nigeria. Nigeria does not make sense as nation yet you resourcefully expect the inhabitants to make sense. Have seen where a sheep begets a lion?

A failed excuse for foul online behavior

espn: Anytime ders a thread dats connected to yorubas or hausas..one fin dats certain is dat igbos here on nairaland wld say sumfin negative abt it..whether its gud or bad..buh if its a thread abt igbos..al dey do is to praise der people..buh u wld neva see any yoruba or hausa to say sumfin bad..u guyz v a big prob..even wen it cums to religious issue..u wld hardly see a yoruba guy or ga who is a xtainl say sumfin abt d opposite religion..buh u can be sure of gettin negative comments frm igbos(xtain)..I guess dis is mere infiriority complex..nonsense!

i concored wit u, that is why they are still second class citizen in nigeria, see there relative jona as he dey rule d country making everybody to suffer they are all after money.servant of money.

espn: Anytime ders a thread dats connected to yorubas or hausas..one fin dats certain is dat igbos here on nairaland wld say sumfin negative abt it..whether its gud or bad..buh if its a thread abt igbos..al dey do is to praise der people..buh u wld neva see any yoruba or hausa to say sumfin bad..u guyz v a big prob..even wen it cums to religious issue..u wld hardly see a yoruba guy or ga who is a xtainl say sumfin abt d opposite religion..buh u can be sure of gettin negative comments frm igbos(xtain)..I guess dis is mere infiriority complex..nonsense!

Its either:
1. you are new on nairaland or,
2. you are a liar or;
3. you are just being the hypocritical Yoruba guy that most of you are.

For anybody who has spent more than one hour on nairaland and still come up with the bulldung you sprayed back there, one of the above 3 points must apply. QED.

and by the way onyenna, whether you are real igbo or just a wannabe, just piss off, ok? Thanks.

Unfortunate

1forall:

A failed excuse for foul online behavior

I do not make excuses. I am what I am, period.

Its really a pity

I'ld to say a few things here!
First of all, shame on Nigerians for placing material things above human life, 4 not caring about each other, we r seriously a terrible set of humans! There is something above mere survival, and that is LIVING!! Passionate living!
Secondly, Yekini had attained a higher human state similar to that of Bob Marley! His psychology leaned towards higher ideals, above d animalistic survival push of our primitive humans nature!! All I can say is that he was way ahead of his time (like the wright brothers...who the so-called knowledgeable society tot were mad). Yekini isolated himself from the world because he hated its stench, greed, pretense, falsehood and deceit! I share similar sentiments! To add to it, he was a natural introvert...., and that is not an abnormality! He rebelled against the world and it's adoration of wealth n material things!! Where he arrived at b4 his death, is where civilization as a whole is headed. He wasn't mad, but he was mad at the world, at the fake society! He was an idealist, not a realist!!!and that was his problem!
About d way he acted, do u guys consider the great Gandhi mad? Considering d way Gandhi dressed n how he lived!! These two men existed in the same 'ideal-world' horizon!! Yekini wasn't mad!!!!!! Most of u here contributed to his death with all this ur stinky n shameful bigotry and tribalism! You guys are quick to mock people! Like what u're all doing to Victor Ikpeba currently! As if speaking english is the sole criteria 4 excelling. Yekini's english wasn't good either! I guess u would have mocked him as well! So he kept his distance! Away from you perfect humans! In life, passion is all that counts! Only it can break our language barrier, differences and impediments!
Finally, those that hate the kind of ethnic bashing that goes on here, should try to ignore and report these kids that come here to talk about what they have no power over!! Nobody chooses his tribe or place of birth! Plzzzzzz U are not animals and Nigeria is not a jungle!!

the evils of oily soup