Comedian, Lawrence Aletile, popularly known as SeyiLaw has revealed to The PUNCH why he opted to support former Super Eagles winger Femi Opabunmi after he donated the sum of N200,000 to the player.
Opabunmi, who at 16 became the third youngest player to appear at the World Cup (Korea/Japan 2002) after Northern Ireland’s Norman Whiteside (17 years and 41 days at Espana ‘82) and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o (17 years and three months at France ’98) ended his football career in 2006 after he started experiencing vision problems in one of his eyes.
The former Shooting Stars player, who represented Nigeria at the 2001 U-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago underwent an eye surgery in 2008 and has not played professional football since then.
The 38-year-old was the toast of Nigerian football fans with his left foot, he could dribble his way past any defense line but nothing has been heard of him for a while.
However, SeyiLaw on Monday took to his Twitter handle to ask for the whereabouts of the former winger, who was likened to Emmanuel Amuneke.
Speaking with The PUNCH, the ace comedian said, “I was just on Twitter and I saw pictures of some boys of the Golden Eaglets and I just remembered Opabunmi because in 2001 he used to tie white plaster around his fingers and how well he played at the competition and was only beaten to the best player award by Florent Sinama Pongolle probably because of his goals.
“He performed so well and at some points, we were tipping him to become a replacement for Emmanuel Amuneke. That made me remember him and that was why I posted before somebody told me that he was suffering from eye problems and other challenges.
“The person directed me to a Youtube link which I watched and confirmed that truly he had an eye issue and that was why I was asking for a link to him.
“I remembered the competition very well and how he scored six goals playing from the wing and in 2002, coach Onigbinde took him to the World Cup in South/Korea and he was the youngest player. He was a gem with great talent and he was not celebrated, yet we celebrated those who were not even close to him. He had a lot of prospects but it is so unfortunate what happened to him and I was almost brought to tears when I was talking to him and explained to me how the issue started when he was in France and had to travel to the US to see a doctor.”
He added, “He equally told me how the doctor said such illness happened to those who are in their old age and not a young chap like him.
