Eight years after his demise, Nigeria is yet to immortalise the legendary Rashidi Yekini, who scored the country’s first ever goal at the FIFA senior World Cup.
He achieved the feat at the 1994 World Cup in the United State of America when he scored the opening goal in the 3-0 defeat of Bulgaria in Super Eagles debut at the World Cup.
Born on October 23, 1963 in Kaduna, Yekini who died on May 4, 2012, under controversial circumstances had 58 caps for Nigeria scoring 37 goals to emerge the country’s all time highest goalscorer.
His career which spanned more than two decades was mainly associated with Portuguese giants, Vitoria de Setubal where he scored a whopping 90 goals in 114 matches.
Before he left Nigeria to play abroad, Yekini first played for clubs like UNTL Kaduna (1981-1982), Shooting Stars of Ibadan (1982-84), and Abiola Babes (1984-1987).
In 1987, the man who was popularly known as ‘gangling Yekini’ due to his physique and robust style of play left Nigeria to play for African Sports of Cote d’Ivoire till 1990 where he left the continent to join Portugal’s Vitoria de Setubal.
Yekini’s illustrious career took him to six countries where he played for other clubs like Olympiacos, FC Zurich, Bizerte and Al-Shabab in Saudi Arabia.
In the twilight of his career, Yekini who scored a total of 164 goals for clubs and country and was voted African Footballer of the Year in 1993, returned home to play for Julius Berger of Lagos between 2002-2003 and Gateway FC of Abeokuta where he finally retired in 2005.
Since his controversial death in 2012, Nigerian football stakeholders have continued to call on the federal government to immortalise the man who helped the Super Eagles to their second AFCON title in Tunisia in 1994.
Unfortunately, the government is yet to respond to such clarion calls but one of his teammates, Abubakar Balarabe who played with him in UNTL FC Kaduna said the government shouldn’t fail to immortalise the former international.
According to him, if former players who served the country diligently are quickly forgotten when they passed on, it would discourage the present Super Eagles players from putting in their best.
“I am pained that someone like Late Yekini is quickly fading away from our memories because nothing has been done to immortalise him.
“It will be good if the federal government through the ministry of sports will immortalise this legend. Surprisingly, even the football federation has not deemed it necessary to keep his memories alive,” he said.
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