One year on, lawyer still accuses family of killing Yekini

Rashidi Yekini

Just some weeks before the first anniversary of the death of Nigerian football legend, Rashidi Yekini in May, his former lawyer, Mohammed Olanrewaju Jubril has restated that his family was responsible for his death.

Speaking on a live show monitored by our correspondent on Tuesday in Lagos, Jubril narrated how Yekini's mother, Sikirat, in company of two hefty men accosted Yekini at his Ibadan residence just as he drove in, bound him in chains and took him away to an unknown location somewhere in Apete.

According to him, Yekini, a fit footballer had to be disarmed with a fetish-looking object which weakened him, thus allowing his abductors to have their way with him.

Jubril noted that Sikirat's actions were based on an erroneous report in an Ibadan-based newspaper that he, Yekini was having mental challenges. Yekini, he said, had seen the report but had chosen not to respond to it in order not to be misquoted or overblow the falsehood.

Yekini's stand, he said, was based on his lack of trust in local media, his family and even his team mates in the Super Eagles.

Jubril further revealed that in spite of Yekini's assuring his abductors that he was sane, the African football legend was carried away and kept for three weeks with some unknown men believed to be local medicine men before he eventually died on Friday, May 4.

He said further that Yekini's abduction was made possible by his (Jubril's) absence which emboldened the family and allowed them enough time to take him away since he was a loner.

He denied that Yekini was broke or that he tossed money at a crowd after withdrawing money from his account.

"He was not broke. If he was, how could he toss money at the crowd as was being said. Besides, that was not true. He never did that," Jubril argued.

He further revealed how Yekini's siblings have been carting away some of his properties and the police in Oyo State turned down request for guards to protect the late footballers' assets.

"I wrote to the Commissioner of Police in Oyo State about getting guards for Yekini's house and properties because some of his siblings have come around to pack things away and I was worried that more people might come to take his things, but I was told to get private protectors instead. I was disappointed after having narrowed down the reasons to that the act could tamper with evidence," he said.

Jubril said that case was rather complicated or else he would have filed suits against Yekini's mother and siblings but will do so when the time is right. He also disclosed that he did not file suits sooner because he did not want to have all Yekini's family detained.

Meanwhile, Yekini's second daughter, Omoyemi, who also spoke on the show, denied that her father was mentally imbalanced. The 14-year-old painted a rosy picture of her father with whom she spent her holidays before he died.

According to her, she and her mother do not believe for a second that he was mentally ill before he met his untimely death.

Jubril, who was also a very close friend of the late footballer, revealed that he is writing a book on Yekini, but did not say if it was a biography although it sounds like one. The book simply titled 'Rahidi Yekini' will be launched on May 2 in Ibadan. He also revealed that a foundation has been set up for the children he left behind.

The National Sports Commission (NSC) is working with him on the whole project through the help of the Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi.