Super Eagles🦅 Of Nigeria🇳🇬 must beat the Sable Antelope of Angola🇦🇴 in their next AFCON23 game (Quarter-finals) today (on Friday) in memory of the late Samuel Okwaraji.
In memory of the late Samuel Sochukwuma Okwaraji who lost his life in struggle on the 12th of August, 1989 while playing for Nigeria🇳🇬 inside the main-bowl of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos State, during the 1990 FIFA World Cup Qualifier against Angola🇦🇴.
Okwaraji made his Eagles debut in 1988 and featured at that year’s African Cup of Nations in Morocco, where he scored one of the fastest goals in the history of the championship against Cameroon in the second minute. He helped the Eagles reach the final, where they lost to Cameroon by a lone goal.
On the 12th of August, 1989, while he was playing for Nigeria in a 2nd round World Cup Qualifier match (Group C, Italia World Cup) against Angola, Samuel Okwaraji slumped on the pitch and died immediately.
It was 77-minute of the match; Right there, in front of more than 80,000 Nigerians at the Main Bowl of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, the Green Eagles were thrown into disarray and all attempts to revive him failed.
As Okwaraji lay motionless on the field, his teammate Samson Siasia was the first to reach him. He bent over to his stricken colleague, only to immediately stand again, his hands on his head in obvious distress and despair. “The way I saw him, he was gasping and foaming. His teeth were gritty.”
A medical team soon reached Okwaraji and quickly called for an ambulance. The nearest one was parked on the opposite side of the pitch, but farcically this wouldn’t start. Four (4) ball boys had to push the ambulance to it a jump start before it could go to his assistance. They took him to hospital where he was pronounced dead
Okwaraji was 25-year-old when he died but autopsy revealed he died from high blood pressure-induced congestive heart failure (which occurs when the heart is unable to provide sufficient pump action to ensure enough blood goes round the body). His heart was discovered to be enlarged. Nigeria won the match 1-0 through a thunderous Stephen Keshi header moments before half-time but painfully lost Okwaraji to the cold hands of death.
Five(5) fans died the same day as the fans overcrowded the stadium, filling it nearly 20,000 over, with about 4,000 others reportedly stranded outside.
Okwaraji, a qualified lawyer who had a Masters in International Law from the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, was reputed for paying his airfares to Eagles matches and declined to collect allowances from the then FA. I1💐
