Newly crowned CAF African Footballer of The Year Victor Osimhen’s humble beginnings from Olusosun, the Lagos community famed for its dumpsite and health hazards, to becoming one of the world’s best footballers following his outstanding performances, is truly one of football’s Cinderella tales, reports ABIODUN ADEWALE
Coming inwards Lagos from the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, a mountainous dumpsite on the right side stares you in the face, just after the 7up Bus Stop at Oregun.
Beyond the landfill, nothing suggests that there’s any settlement or community within the dumpsite.
It’s the 100-acre Olusosun dumpsite, Africa’s largest dumpsite located along the Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun.
Olusosun receives up to 10,000 tons of garbage per day, a substantial portion of this is electronic waste from container ships. Toxic fumes are released from the site and chemicals are absorbed into the ground.
However, around a thousand homes exist near the site. Some residents here eke out a living by scavenging scrap from the dump and sorting, burning and recycling what they can.
At the time it was built in the 1950s, the Olusosun landfill, because of its health hazards, was originally located on the outskirts, but since the exponential urban development that has characterised Lagos, residential, commercial and industrial buildings have since sprung up around the landfill.
One of the houses in the Olusosun community is where newly crowned CAF Player of The Year Victor Osimhen was born and raised.
Napoli striker Osimhen’s grass-to-grace story is common knowledge to football followers globally, with the striker, who was born to poor parents, never hiding his struggles as a kid.
Ever since he came into the limelight in 2015, when his record 10 goals fired Nigeria to a fifth FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile, Olusosun community – where the striker was born December 29, 1998 — has become very popular for the right reason, other than the eyesore of dumpsite people used to describe it.
In Olusosun, Osimhen is adored, hero-worshipped and loved.
Though the star footballer no longer lives there, Olusosun comes alive whenever he scores or claims a silverware in the last eight years, the latest being named African Player of The Year in Marrakesh, Morocco December 11, to become Nigeria’s first winner of the award since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999.
Back in the community, sleep was cancelled by residents to celebrate their golden boy, who had continuously turned lemons into lemonade on his journey to the top of the global football ladder.
Even though the road got narrower as our correspondent paid the community a visit Tuesday December 12 — following morning after Osimhen’s CAF award — it wasn’t difficult locating the Super Eagles striker’s former residence as passersby readily described the narrow pathway and sharp bends which led to Anisere Street.
Few metres away from the house, congratulatory banners after he won the Scudetto with Napoli last season still adorned the street.
It must have been a long night for the youths in the community after Osimhen’s CAF award, with the hangover written on the face of one of his childhood friends, Adesoye Adeyemi.
“It was a night to remember for everyone, we did not sleep until about 2am,” Adeyemi told our correspondent with a foggy voice.
Before winning the CAF POTY, he was ranked eighth in the 2023 Ballon d’Or and that was something to ride on for confidence. His pals back home were never in doubt that he was going to win.
“I was never in doubt and we have been expecting him to be number one in Africa. So, we were all eager to witness the ceremony,” Fatai Bello, who lives opposite Osimhen’s former house, also told our correspondent.
Humble beginnings
No doubt, Osimhen’s former residence is now the most popular place in Olusosun. The one-story building where the striker was born in 1998 has become a kind of tourist attraction, which has made the landlord, Jamiu Sanni, who is also the Chairman of Olusosun Council Development Area, a proud man.
“The last time he was home, he was in my living room upstairs when everyone from the community swarmed the street to see him. He is loved here,” Sanni said.
“I brag about it everywhere I go that Osimhen is my son because he was born and bred in my father’s house. And he’s like the son and brother of everyone in this community as well.”
Growing up, Osimhen’s poor family could only afford a home in the popular rubbish dump noted for its emission of thick smoke, foul smell and routine fire outbreaks.
At a young age, the last child of seven siblings lost his mother, while his father lost his job, leaving him and his siblings in the dark world of uncertainty.
Insecurity, poverty and the perennial fear of eviction by the Lagos State Government starred his family in the face.
Just like his never-say-die attitude on the pitch, he didn’t give up.
He sold sachet water on the ever-busy Lagos roads but kept an eye on football, playing the game on streets in his neighbourhood, as well as joining the youth side Ultimate Strikers Academy.
“I come from a place where so many dreams have died but I’m the kind of person who doesn’t give up irrespective of my situation. So, I was forced to go out and get myself a life,” Osimhen said.
A former neighbour of the Osimhens, who identified herself simply as Abosede, recounted the struggles of the family.
“Before Victor’s mum died, she was a cleaner and they fed from hand to mouth,” Abosede said. “Despite that, she was a very nice woman who ensured she paid all debts she incurred from buying food items on credit at the end of every month. Sometimes, Osimhen and his siblings hawked sachet/table water in traffic at Ojota just to feed.”
The footballer’s former landlord Sanni also told The PUNCH how the family barely managed to survive.
“When they lived here, I knew his father wanted him to go to school at all costs. Then his mother died too and he still kept on playing football. Things were so difficult for them that they even had several issues paying rent,” Sanni said.
“However, Osimhen was so humble that he ran errands for most of us. There is another vendor, Mama Chichi, who sells foodstuff, Osimhen also ran errands for her like helping her to carry her wares and removing shafts from beans,” she added.
Living in dire conditions
Olusosun has now developed into a full-fledged residential area, very close to the Ojota motor park, sandwiched between an industrial layout with fumes as well as the stench of the dumpsite. While some of the residents in the area are engaged in the garbage and factory economy of the area, the environmental hazards, particularly from the dumpsite, are staring them in their faces.
The stinky air seems to be something they have accepted as fate while water from the area is coloured as a result of groundwater pollution.
Almost every house in the community has a well, but still, there’s numerous water hawkers within the streets as residents resorted to buying water for their domestic chores as well as drinking following the contamination of water from the wells.
In one of the compounds our correspondent visited, some bowls and a bucket were filled with the contaminated water. According to the residents, they are only useful for flushing or washing the toilet.
“You see that dumpsite, one of the greatest damages it has done to us is our water. Whenever we dig a well or even a borehole, within two months, the water changes colour,” a resident, who simply identified herself as Mrs. Oluwakemi, told The PUNCH.
“All efforts made to solve this problem didn’t work. We are now used to buying water. We buy sachet water for drinking and also from mallams at N100 per keg. In a day, we use at least a drum, which takes 10 kegs. That’s about N1000,” she added.
At Olusosun Primary school — Osimhen’s ex-school — the landfill and activities of scavengers on it is even more visible. On the right-hand side of the gate is a water tank and treatment plant donated by the Rotary Club, but this also produces coloured water.
This serves a s a major challenge for young footballers in the community aspiring to become the next Osimhen.
“After playing football, we hardly get water to wash our bodies immediately, take our bath at home or even wash our kits because we have to manage water at home,” Emmanuel Wisdom, an U-13 player of Olusosun United FC, one of the teams Osimhen played for in the community, told our correspondent.
Aside from the lack of potable water, playing football on the sandy pitch of Olusosun Primary School is like playing through smell. It is even worse for pupils of the school.
“In class, it doesn’t allow us to concentrate too. The bolar smell is really bad, especially when rain falls,” Nnamdi Anosike, a pupil of the school and U-13 player of Olusosun United said.
Another young player, Israel Ajibade, added that they sometimes defied the smell to scavenge for footballs they can make do with in the landfill.
“Sometimes we go there to look for balls we can play on the streets. When we find the balls, we will clean them and play them at home. We don’t bring them to training because we have balls we use in training. Our parents don’t know we do go there.”
Osimhen, like other kids in the community, also scavenged for boots, following the hardship in the entire neighbourhood. And it spurred him on, rather than demoralise him.
“I often think of where I come from and where I want to go. I still have a long way to go,” France Football quoted Osimhen as saying. “When I think of Olusosun… This is not a place that offers you promises. But I never gave up.
“Where I grew up, people lived on the other side of an open dump. With my friends, we went there every Friday or Sunday to find crampons and shoes. We stayed there for a long time. It was funny! We saw it as a game but when you think about it… It was always a fight. We were looking for crampons.
“Sometimes you see, you found yourself with a Nike on the right foot and then you start looking for the other foot … And finally, you find the left foot and it’s a Reebok! My sister patched everything up and it was good. It was survival.”
Olusosun health hazards
According to research, those living at least five kilometres away from landfills are at the risk of respiratory infections due to inhalation of toxic air. Pupils of Olusosun Primary School, which shares a perimeter fence with the landfill, are not safe as well, while the entire community is prone to diseases carried by mosquitoes, flies and rodents.
Residents said before they turned away from the polluted groundwater in Olusosun, there was a high rate of water-borne diseases such as typhoid, dysentery and cholera, especially among children.
Beyond health challenges, the residents are also at the mercy of a harsh weather condition due to ozone layer depletion, according to an environmentalist and co-founder of Eko Village Environmental Technologies, a waste resource company in Lagos, Dr Femi Adegoke.
“The truth is that the stench from a dump site is very dangerous and it is not good for human emission. And the indiscriminate and open dumping of waste affects climate change. When you dump all these organic and inorganic waste mixed, that is why you have these entire stenches coming out. The gases they emit over time rise and deplete the ozone layer. It has a very huge negative impact on climate change as well apart from the direct pollution to human health,” he explained.
Another public health expert, Dr Tuyi Mebawondu, stated that improper management of dumpsites puts residents at risk of an epidemic.
“There are a lot of bacteria, viruses, parasites and these would always lead to diseases. Those around there would feel dizzy and tired. The decomposing gases such as sulphur and methane emitting from the dumpsite, if they are inhaled continually, the compilation of those gases, as well as the odour, would affect the health of the people. These components can also lead to respiratory problems such as asthma.
“Also, their food and water are easily contaminated, either directly or from disease vectors such as flies, cockroaches and rats at the dumpsites,” he added.
Youngster triumphs
Aside the health hazards, insecurity, poverty and the perennial fear of eviction by the Lagos State Government constantly starred Osimhen and his family in the face.
Just like his never-say-die attitude on the pitch, he didn’t give up.
Money did not come from playing football, but it didn’t matter. He combined it with his sachet water business.
And chasing vehicles barefooted helped the lad when he eventually got the breakthrough in life.
And around 2013, Osimhen had become a striker to be reckoned within the community. He played for Olusosun United FC and also volunteered to play for other teams whenever they had a match outside the community.
The owner of Olusosun United, Paul Erikewe, who was a coach as at 2015, narrated how his never-say-die attitude caught the attention of Shira Ayila, brother of ex-international Yusuf Ayila.
The chance meeting with Ayila ultimately helped shape his career path, and like they say, the rest is history.
“There were about four players in the team then that didn’t like losing. So, they went to play a friendly match, and Shira saw him and picked interest in him. That was how his journey to the national U-17 team began,” Erikewe told The PUNCH.
From Olusosun United FC, to Synergy FC; within the same neighborhood and Ultimate Strikers, Osimhen eventually made it to the camp of coach Emmanuel Amuneke in the build up to the U-17 AFCON and World Cup.
When he got to the FIFA Goal Project pitch in Abuja, where the U-17 officials were screening players, Osimhen was dazed by the huge crowd of players in camp.
“It was like two million players!,” he said.
He was given a 15-minute try-out by the coach and he scored two goals.
It was a fairytale ride afterwards, as he led the Golden Eaglets to a record fifth U-17 World Cup triumph, scoring 10 goals, the highest ever at the tournament, and scooping the Golden Boot and Silver Ball awards in the process.
He was also named the 2015 CAF Young Player of The Year.
European sojourn
A high-profile three-and-a-half-year move to Bundesliga side Wolfsburg followed.
However, the youngster’s career witnessed a reversal of fortunes thereafter.
He was sidelined by injuries, making just 12 Bundesliga appearances and scoring no goal, after he had three surgeries on his right knee and one on his shoulder.
Osimhen was broken but didn’t give up and he admits the harsh conditions in Olusosun toughened him for the task ahead.
“Growing up in a family when it was hard to get three square meals in a day, I can say that I have seen it all in life; the hardest part was when I was at Wolfsburg. It was really a tough period for me and at some point, I started doubting my abilities,” Osimhen said.
But an amazing career revival at another Belgian side Sporting Charleroi, where he scored 20 goals in 36 games while on loan in the 2018/19 season, again set him on the path to the top.
The following season, the Nigerian joined Lille for €12m and scored 18 goals with six assists in 38 games across all competitions. He was voted the club’s Player of The Year and also scooped the Marc-Vivien Foe prize for the best African player in Ligue 1 before Italian giants Napoli grabbed him from the French club in the 2020/21 season for €70m — making him the most expensive African transfer till date.
He also played just one season in Ligue 1 before his stock rose rapidly. With 18 goals and six assists in 38 games, Lille were quick to cash in on the Nigerian. He was sold to Italian Serie A side Napoli for €75m in 2020, making him the most expensive African footballer.
In his second season in Napoli, he won the Serie A Best Young Player award and turned up in style the following season, helping the club win their first Serie A title in 33 years in 2022/23. In the process, Osimhen scored 26 league goals to win the highest goal scorer award. He also holds the record for the most goals scored by an African in the Serie A, surpassing George Weah’s 46-goal record in May. As at the time of filing this report, he had scored 57 goals in 95 appearances.
Before the CAF Awards ceremony, he was named the Italian Footballers Association’s Player of The Year for his stellar performance last season.
In the colours of Nigeria, he is primed to lead Nigeria’s attack at the 2023 AFCON in Ivory Coast from January 13 to February 11, as the Super Eagles bid to win the tournament for a fourth time.
Inspiring next generation
Many years after making it out of the slum, the Napoli man hasn’t lost touch with his roots. Since 2015, he has always returned to Olusosun after every season break.
“His first homecoming after the U-17 World Cup in 2015 was huge. It was not just for Olusosun, many other people from different parts of Lagos like Ojota, Maryland, Ikeja also joined the train. Olusosun couldn’t contain the crowd that day,” Olusosun United FC owner, Erikewe, stated.
Eight years after his breakout, many children and young footballers are also aspiring to become the next big star out of Olusosun.
“The way people hail him and follow him whenever he visits Olusosun, if you see it, you’d also have no choice than to have the mindset of working hard and make an impact with your life,” Taiye Anisere, a 15-year-old left-back with Osimhen’s former club told The PUNCH.
“I want to be like Victor. He’s hardworking, he plays very well and doesn’t give up. He doesn’t like to lose and likes to score. That’s the inspiration I get from him. He’s one of the best strikers in the world.”
For Nigeria, Osimhen has 20 goals in 27 appearances, sitting in number four in the all-time top scorers chart behind Yakubu Aiyegbeni (21), Segun Odegbami (23) and Rashidi Yekini (37). At just 24 and after just 27 games, compared to Yekini’s 58 appearances, Osimhen is in line to climb another ladder of greatness in Nigerian football, no thanks to a childhood sculpted by the gigantic dumpsite just kilometres away from his home.
However, for now, it’s still about his CAF POTY award after a successful season with Napoli, but his peers, juniors and seniors back at Olusosun would be hoping for more sleepless nights in the name of the striker. It may not be far away, as the 2023 AFCON beckons in Ivory Coast in 23 days time.
