Stephen Keshi (1961 – 2016)

When Stephen Keshi played for St. Finbarrs College, Lagos in the late 1970s, I was in Igbobi College Yaba, Lagos. My school was a perpetual finalist in the ‘Principals’ Cup’ competition for boys’ football competed for by Lagos State Secondary Schools. We had reached the finals on numerous occasions, but had never won and had been nicknamed “Sooroye” by our rivals. St. Finbarrs was one of the more fortunate teams, along with CMS Grammar School, Baptist Academy, St. Gregory’s College and a few others who were incessant winners. We finally broke the jinx in the mid to late 1980s. On a positive note, one reason Igbobi did not have as much “luck” as our peers because our principals refused to use “professional” students who went from school to school playing football!

I seem to recall watching Keshi and his school mates at St. Finbarrs beat our school sometime during my time at Igbobi, though my memory cannot be definitive now, as we speak of games I watched as a teenager over 35 years ago. Needless to say, Keshi played for Nigerian Academicals in 1978 before joining Lagos club, ACB in 1979. ACB (African Continental Bank) was the bank founded by Dr Nnamdi Azikwe and then owned by the Eastern State Government. It was supported mostly by Igbo residents in Lagos while mainstream Lagosians supported Stationery ‘Super” Stores founded by the great Israel Adebajo. I had started life supporting Enugu Rangers as a little boy (and innocently wondered why that was so confounding for both our Yoruba and Igbo neighbours) before switching to Super Stores in secondary school. However when Keshi and the excellent generation of what we would today call “South South” players – Humphrey Edobor, Augustine Eguavoen, Sunday Eboigbe, Bright Omokaro and Henry Nwosu (Nwosu was also a prodigy from Lagos school boy football) joined NNB, it was difficult not to admire the fluid, beautiful but also robust football that they played. I subsequently supported Leventis United of Ibadan, IICC Shooting Stars, also of Ibadan and Abiola Babes of Abeokuta before the glorious age of Nigerian domestic club football came to an end.

Stephen Keshi was a pioneer in many ways – he led the exodus of Nigerian footballers abroad, first to Cote D’ivoire and then Europe when then NFA headed by Tony Ikhazoboh suspended him and Nwosu, Eboigbe, Omokaro, Edobor and Clement Temile from football for one year. He played for one season for Staded’Abidjan in 1985, joined Africa Sports, for another season, before joining Lokeren in Belgium. He also played for Anderlecht, RC Strasbourg, RWDM, CCV Hydra, Sacramento Scorpions and Perlis FA. His stint at the national team began as a youth player, before he broke into the Green Eagles in 1979, but was not selected for the team that won the African Nations Cup in 1980. That was the massive team that included “mathematical” Segun Odegbami, Christian Chukwu, Adokiye Amiesimaka, Muda Lawal, Felix Owolabi, Alloysius Atuegbu and other great Nigerian football giants. Keshi returned to the national team in 1981 and served as captain from 1982 to 1996.

1994 was clearly the peak of Keshi’s time in the Eagles – that year the team that won the African title in Tunisia along with fellow players who have been described as the golden generation of Nigerian football – Rasheed, Yekini, Daniel Amokachi, Sunday Oliseh, Mutiu Adepoju, Ben Iroha, Austin “Jay Jay” Okocha, Peter Rufai, Augustine Eguavoen, Uche Okechukwu, George Finidi, Thompson Oliha, Samson Siasia, Victor Ikpeba and Emmanuel Amunike, amongst others. Their coach was the loquacious but effective Clemens Westerhof. The same team proceeded to the USA 1994 World Cup where Rasheed Yekini memorably chanted “Yekini, Yekini” as he shook the net after scoring Nigeria’s first ever goal in world cup football. I recall saying, as I watched subsequent Super Eagles games at that tournament, that it appeared there was a conspiracy by Yekini’s team mates to deny him the ball. That comment, uttered merely based on observation was later confirmed, a development that may have caused or contributed to the subsequent psychological and/or social problems Yekini later developed. Apparently a clique had formed in the Eagles which felt Yekini was getting too much of the accolades for the team’s success and determined to cut him to size. It was the Abacha era, when everything was politicized and the concept of “NADECO players” (a reference to the South-West based opposition group fighting the annulment of MKO Abiola’s presidential victory) had entered into the team. Needless to say, the divided team sub-optimised at the end of the world cup and crashed out prematurely.

At the end of his playing career, Keshi turned to coaching, starting with the Flying Eagles before assisting Coach Amodu Shuaibu and Joe Erico at the Super Eagles. They qualified Nigeria for the 2002 World Cup but were not allowed to lead the team to that competition. Keshi became Togolese national coach and unexpectedly qualified them for the 2006 world cup. Keshi’s coaching career in Togo was dogged by allegations that would also be murmured later in Nigeria-suspicions that he sought to profit from transfers involving his players. Emmanuel Adebayor publicly made such accusations eventually costing Keshi his job in Togo. Keshi also had a brief and unsuccessful coaching stint in Mali.

To his credit as Nigeria coach in 2013, Keshi led a little-heralded Nigeria team to the African Cup of Nations title in South Africa, achieving the distinction along with only Mahmoud El-Gohary of Egypt of winning the title as both player and coach. In 2014, he was also the first Nigeria coach to lead the national team to the second round at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

In many ways, Steven Keshi’s life and career mirrors Nigeria. The potential of Nigeria’s youth; the incredible talent and charisma of our people; the arbitrariness and capriciousness of political decision making and administration in Nigeria and how it sub-optimizes the nation; our challenges and victories as a people; ethnic and sectarian differences manipulated by the elite for personal advantage; the limitations of a health system and the stresses that reduce life expectancy; and overall, great potential, sometimes fulfilled but often unrealised. Born on January 31, 1961 in Azare, Bauchi state, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi died unexpectedly on June 8, 2016 aged 55 years. His wife of 33 years, Kate died only six months earlier on December 10, 2015 leaving his four children orphaned. Curiously days after Keshi’s death, his predecessor, former boss and colleague Amodu Shuaibu also passed away! Perhaps Sunday Oliseh was right to be paranoid about Nigeria’s football coaching job!

 

Opeyemi Agbaje