I am still physically incapacitated, but the good news is that my little finger (still encased in crepe bandage and still occasionally aching like crazy) is healing fast. The bad news is that I still have 4 weeks to go before the encasement can be removed. I have just realised that my dexterity with my left hand can be likened to the ‘uselessness’ of my left foot when I was active as a player. My left foot was only good to stand on. Unless some kind of miracle happens I shall have to depend on extracting materials from my archives as I did last week in order to sustain this page for the few weeks. Fortunately, this week, there is one such miracle – an interesting mail I found in my mailbox early this week. It came from a gentleman who has chosen to use a pseudo name for reasons best known to him. After going through the mail I realised it did not matter who the writer was. What mattered was the story and the subject involved. Let me be the first to admit that I have no recollection of the name or the story, but in the past few days I have enquired from several colleagues if the name ‘Sunny Dike’ rang a bell. Like me, none of them so far could immediately recall the name. Only Osasu confirmed that there was some faint familiarity about the name. It is obvious that Sunny did not stay with Nigerian football long enough to have impacted Nigerian football. But his story shines a light on the State of our football administration, particularly in the area of documentation and rewarding players through acknowledgments at critical and important times in our football firmament for their roles and contributions to the game in small and large ways. The more I read through the mail, the more I felt that this was such a touching story that publishing it at this time when I could not do much writing much must be the product of a divine script! So here is Sunny Dike’s story slightly edited to reduce its length. I hope it would stimulate some more deep thoughts about how not to forget our heroes! I hope also that the story shall be authenticated by those that may know the player and this story. On a personal note I shall definitely go ahead to make enquiries about the man and fill the blank space in our football history that the omission of such a patriot would have created.

Nigeria’s forgotten patriot

by Megapro, Hannover

‘Those contemplating killing one another for politicians should think twice next month.’

As the elections draw near, it is a crucial time for Nigerians to choose the path that can bring prosperity. The combatants and the supporters should not see it as a do or die affair. When results don’t go their way, the law courts are there to seek redress and not unnecessary bloodshed. This piece, however, is about the kind of mayhem that was unleashed in 1993 in the aftermath of the June 12 annulment.

I first met Sunny Dike sometime in 1989/90 at the Roman Gardens hotel, Benin, camp of Bendel Insurance football club. I had gone to drop one of the players - Mfon Bassey. Sunny had been posted to Bendel State and to the Bendel Insurance Company for his primary assignment, after catching the eye in the orientation camp in Auchi. Different from the norm when one expected to be in the midst of semi-educated footballers when you are around them, in that era the team had an undergraduate like Henry Alake (RIP), graduates like goalkeeper Emeka Amadi that was at Saudi 89, and goalkeeper Gbenga Moses who has since had his Masters degree. There was something unique about the fellow that came to meet us at the car. He spoke like Wole Soyinka. He was simply as bright as they come. He was a physics/ electronics graduate from the University of Port-Harcourt, finishing with a second class upper. This chap from Rumuola in Port-Harcourt could talk about every topic on earth, methodical like a scientist and from an intellectual point of view. I got to know about his humble beginnings, especially that he lost his father at the age of 5 and the mother alone had to raise him and his siblings. He had great aspirations and strove to be successful so he could fill into the role as the bastion of hope to provide for the family his father left behind. He took to soccer. His first club was Okaku United, Choba, and his talents got him into the Rivers State academicals that participated in various age-grade tournaments including the National Sports Festival.

The first time I watched him was during an Insurance team training at the S&T barracks pitch opposite Uniben and was impressed with his sophisticated interpretation of the modern wing play. His work rate, positioning, unselfishness and eye for goal, was so different from the regular incessant running and dribbling. A utility player, he also had the usefulness of being able to be deployed, and adapt to any of the advanced positions up the field despite his stocky, diminutive stature. Off the pitch he had an even more exemplary character – humble, jovial, pleasant, and was never the kind to harass the local teenage girls, or give apprentice teammate – a young Wilson Oruma – his boots to carry like some of his colleagues did. Wilson was to later get a career bigger than all the others combined.

I saw a couple of their matches but they were limited because I spent 80% of the time in Jos where I studied. I eventually did when Insurance came to play against Mighty jets of Jos 1991 in a national div 1 league match where he came in as a forced tactical substitute after Bassey was issued a red card. His hands were full that day as a young St. Murumba College student, Benedict Akwuegbu, dominated the game from central midfield (whoever converted this one to an average striker?), but they held on to force a goalless draw. He invited my friend, Stanley and I after the game to their hotel and that was the last time I saw him.

Sunny left Insurance and Benin City, to broaden his horizon both in the game and his profession. A guy that wanted to attain the best in everything he did, he went back to Port-Harcourt to commence his Masters program in Uniport, as well as sign for local team, Sharks of Port-Harcourt. He could not travel to all the Club’s away games due to his tight schedule, and even more when he was invited to Lagos to join the other best players from the 1992 NUGA soccer event for preparation for the 1993 FISU World University games in Buffalo, USA.

This was his second Universiade. He had been a part of the crack team to the 1987 event in Zagreb, old Yugoslavia, parading the likes of Nosa Osadolor, Titus Mbah (Ife), Bolaji ‘Oloye’ Douglas (Unilorin) and Oliver Ndigwe (Uniben), that promised so much and produced so little. They drew then with Argentina and China after losing to Holland in the group matches, got smacked by Algeria in the 13th-16th placement game and ended up in the 15th position from 16 teams after walking over Brazil in the 15th place match. Nigerian got medals there from our veteran US based students including Moses Ugbisie, Paul Emordi, Mary Onyali & Tina Iheagwam. He did not attend the 1991 event in Sheffield with Henry Alake because he was no more a student, but was a very vital member of this 1993 team in camp considering the experience he brought along.

Babangida annulled the 1993 presidential elections and all hell was let loose. Just days after the annulment, at the height of the impasse, as I drove down Western Avenue one evening with a sign on my car that I was in support of the struggle, counting the unidentified bodies of those caught in the cross fire, something terrible was taking place on another expressway leading to the Murtala Muhammed Airport.

The Nigerian delegation to the Universiade was scheduled to take off that night from Lagos for the event starting on the 8th of July 1993. They were to meet the other members of the contingent there who were US based athletes on scholarship such as Daniel Philips Effiong, the world leading sprinter till that point, Beatrice Utondu, Christy Okpara Thompson, Ime Akpan, Faith Idehen etc. Sunny, clad in his Green track suit with Nigeria written in White on the front and back, chose to sit by the window at the rear of the bus from where he could crack his jokes and make jests.

They approached the Toyota Bus stop when it happened. Demonstrators looking for anything belonging to the Nigerian government were delighted to see a Nigeria Sports Commission bus coming their way, and the driver must have sensed danger, albeit late, for he screeched to a halt and attempted making a U-turn. A bigger vehicle smashed into his rear – adding calamity to the confusion. Sunny’s seat sat perfectly at the epicentre of the thunderous impact that saw him and his colleagues flung to other parts of the bus. As other national teams made it to the US for the games, the Nigerian soccer team made it to a Lagos hospital with many critically injured players.

The doctors tried their best but Sunny Dike gave in to his injuries days later, extinguished in his prime like the mandate the mob were fighting for. He died on duty wearing the colours of his beloved country. The Nigerian team eventually made it on time to the tournament placing 9th from the 16 teams after wins over South Africa, USA and Uruguay in the placement matches, but it was clear the team was handicapped by the absence of some of it’s best and experienced players particularly the only one that died in the accident – Sunny Dike.

We’ve always had successive series of football administrators that don’t bother about the living, talk less of the dead. In the confusion of summer 1993 and later, no one took up the sad incident or cared about the plight of those Sunny Dike left behind. Very few even know it happened, but whatever the case, he did not die for anything but a love to serve his fatherland. For that alone he cannot simply be wiped from history.

He went to his creator a true patriot. May his soup continue to rest in perfect peace.

megapro24@gmail.com