Going back to the classroom

A few days ago, Felix, a childhood friend that I had not seen or heard from since we both left secondary school in Jos (he went to St. John’s College while I was to St. Murumba College) called me up from the blue.

After all the usual felicitations he commended me for attaining national prominence the way I did despite the ‘ordinariness’ of our foundation coming out of Jos. Of course, I knew what he meant.

I have probably been the most hyped and most visible retired sports person in Nigerian sports. My time in professional sport and life since retiring, almost half a Century of both connected to the media in one form or the other, have kept me constantly in public eye.

Felix considered me a very successful business man in the field of sports. And he said so in a few words. The situation is that even when I was playing football on a full-time basis as a Civil servant in Oyo State, I was so afraid of the uncertainty of life-after-sport that I veered early into business, buying and selling sports kits, beer, soft drinks, cement and even aspects of the media, none of which I was formally trained for. I never thought I need any training.

From my personal observation, the life-after-sport of former famous sports persons, were not good adverts. So, in my mind some form of business (I was not going to practice Mechanical engineering because I had no deep passion for it) was the answer to guaranteeing a successful life after the glitz and the glitter of a career in sports.

So, I understood what Felix was talking about. Optically, the image I conjure in pubic is of a very successful and probably very rich retired person. He even wondered how much I must be worth by now, in Dollars and Pounds.

He was right. By now, following decades of my