Football
One year after football
sage, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi passed on , the umbrella body of professional
footballers in the country gathered in Keshi’s preferred homestead in Benin
City for the inaugural, Stephen Keshi Memorial Lecture.
Keshi, who remains the only
Nigerian to have won the Nations Cup trophy as captain and Coach, was being
honoured by a very united professional football body of players, styled
Association of Professional Footballers of Nigeria (APFON), headed, Keshi’s
former teammate at the New Nigeria Bank Austin Popo.
The hugely attended event
had the Edo State Deputy Governor, Comrade Ahmed Shuaibu represented by the
Deputy Chief of Staff in the Government House, with the Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Sports and several dignitaries of the state in attendance honouring Keshi after one year
of his demise.
The event held at the
Petrol Workers Union Hall on the Benin City-Auchi Road and justice was done to
the topic of Keshi as an icon by no other than Edo FA Chairman, Frank Ilaboya,
who represented Mike Idoko, the guest speaker. Ilaboya asked government to not
only immortalize Keshi so as to encourage future stars but to use him to sign
post the future of Nigerian football, because at a point he was playing with
pain-killers and aggravating his knees, which over time caused his death.
Among former
internationals that attended the event includes Clement Temile, Dahiru Sadi,
Prince Afejukwu, Sam Ikedi, , while a Bendel Insurance, Dynamite FC and Edo
Queens were also hugely represented. National Association of Edo State Students
NAESS, who are planning a Festival for Keshi and late former national Coach,
Shuaibu Amodu were also represented by their leaders.,
A mass was later held at
the St Paul’s Catholic Church in Benin City, to commemorate the one year
passage of the icon, with APFON promising that the event will be an annual
carnival.
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