The
death of former Nigerian international goalkeeper, Wilfred Agbonavbare has once
again opened the endless debate of whether or not it is indeed worth it to live
and die for Nigeria, here was a man who spent the better part of his youth
defending the Nigerian national colors in all categories in football only to be
abandoned by the same people he brought countless joy and national pride to.
For
so many years, those of us who live in Spain have witnessed the unstoppable crash
of a meteoric star and have wondered severally how a man who had given his all
for his nation could be allowed to wallow in such a humiliating condition.
Before the news of his cancer was made public, it was really hard to tell
anyone that the same man that I used to go and watch play at the national
stadium, Surulere, Lagos in the 80s was the same man that I was really seeing in Spain, it was
more or less the demystification of an age-long icon.
Each
time I saw him, a question often repeated itself in my mind, can´t the Edo
state government do anything to improve the life of this man, at least make him
a coach with the Edo state sports council? And what about the Nigerian football
association? And how come the Nigerian federal government gave national honors
to some notorious and corrupt criminals and not patriots like Wilfred Agbonavbare?
And
eventually when the news of his battle against cancer came up, I remembered his
football colleagues, especially our national super eagles, and wondered if
there was not a way they could have organized a solidarity match to raise the
fund for his treatment when it was obvious that he was having difficulties in keeping up with the bills for his treatment. As always, it took the kind
gesture of outsiders, this time his former clubside Rayo Vallecano in Spain to donate towards the
struggle to save the life of our dying patriot in far away Spain.
Now,
we can all bring out our heads in shame, me first, to write about a man who we
all abandoned for so many years but who God has finally decided to grant
eternal rest, a man whose tears we all pretended that we did not see, whose
pains meant absolutely nothing until they became incurable. I hope that our
nation will at least take care of his children now that he is dead so that when they sing our
national anthem, the part that says that "... the labor of our heroes past shall
never be in vain" will indeed make some sense to them. REST IN PEACE, HERO OF
OUR TIME. Adios, Wilfred Agbonavbare
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