Former Nigeria Professional Football League chairman, Chief Oyuki Obaseki, is dead. He breathed his last at the wee hours of Sunday (precisely 3am) in Ibadan where he has been on treatment in the last five months.
The 75-year-old Edo State-born football administrator was struck with stroke about three years ago and had since been moving from one hospital to the other till he finally succumbed on Sunday.
As the chairman of the NPFL, Chief Obaseki, popularly called the ‘Moving Train’ achieved great feats which can’t be easily waved aside by even his antagonists. Under him, the Nigerian league was adjudged as the strongest in Africa and for the first time the league is being broadcast live on television after he brokered a deal with TotalPromotions.
Chief Obaseki as the Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) had rough times with his colleagues on the board because he refused to compromise the funds of the NPFL for luxuries. This explains why all the 20 clubs in the league were able to receive at least N10 million each and per season, under him.
Chief Obaseki’s regrets when he spoke with The Crest from Ibadan recently was the terrible retrogression of the Nigerian league hoping that an erudite football manager will stray into the league high seat again.
Obaseki ran a good race and his achievements will always be boldly written on the sand of history.
He was survived by a wife, children and grandchildren’
