Rashidi Yekini:Where is our dad? …Yekini’s Children

Daughters  want to know how their father died

By Ayo Ademokoya

Daughters of the late football icon, Rashidi Yekini are still in shock that 4 years after  the demise of their father  no one in Nigeria has ever bothered to ask question about what killed the man they claim to adore and wondered if truly Rashidi Yekini ever sacrificed for the country.

21 years old Yemisi Yekini , an undergraduate of Cinematography at the Leicester City University ,England and her kid sister  Omoyemi Yekini, an 18 year old  undergraduate of English Language at the University of Ilorin, Kwara state  in an emotion laden press conference held yesterday at K One hotels, Maryland Lagos on Wednesday as they held journalists spell bound when  they began to share their dreams and aspiration on how exactly they plan to immortalize their father.

“It’s painful that our dad died without anyone asking questions and it is sad because we don’t know what killed .I remember I spoke to him on phone  few weeks before he was abducted and ask him about the rumor that he was mad and he answer that nothing was wrong with him that I shouldn’t mind the rumour mongers. I later was expecting him to call him as he does every Wednesday and Sunday and when I heard nothing I believe he was busy as usual only for my mum to call me later that he was dead, how? She said she doesn’t know, my heart dropped”

“To be honest with you I was in Portugal 2 years ago on vacation and I decided to visit Victoria Setubal, the club I heard my late dad played for . After I introduced myself as the daughter of Rashidi Yekini I was shocked the kind of reception I got and the following week I was invited to watch one of the football match where at half time I was allowed to address the mammoth crowd after the club officials spoke glowingly about my late fathers exploit for Victoria Setubal.I was later presented with a huge action picture of him playing in the colours of the club a jersey with his name bold inscribed at the back.

Unfortunately when I got to Nigeria, I never saw such reception like the one in Portugal yet, I  haven’t seen anything that shows that this man was really great in his lifetime here in Nigeria. The most shocking thing is that people were expecting us, the children to ask what really killed our father because till now we don’t know how he died. In a normal society the country is the one to do the finding for us and feed us back, but 4 years after his death It is  painful that we children are the ones asking our mothers, the country that how did our father died because we don’t ,Yemisi said.

Omoyemi also reechoed the trauma she went through went she heard that people were carrying the rumor that her father died of mental illness.

“There was nothing wrong with my father, I was with him each time  I’m on holidays, this was a man that drives himself without knocking anyone down, he never caused any disturbance in the neighborhood as he got himself more into helping people with his money,  I remember each time he drives us out of thee neighborhood on our way to the stadium in Ibadan,there was this particular man at the junction he gives money to every blessed day and I want to know if that makes him mad because nothing was wrong with him so we don’t know what warranted his abduction for 3 weeks before till he eventually died in the hands of his captors. That is still a big concern to us and we really need an  an answer.

On the issue of the Estate of Rashidi Yekini,The duo of Yemisi and Omoyemi said that no pressure from the extended family would make them sell their father’s house in Ibadan as it is the only legacy that binds both of them together.

“We have a foundation on ground already and we want Nigerians to support The Rashidi Yekini foundation and we would love to turn the house in Ibadan to into a museum where can visit as I’m planning to produce a documentary about the life and times of my father soon, besides the house is the only memory we had left of our father, we both lived with him in the house and we cannot let go of the property for anyone.

Our father left two properties for us, One in Ijagbo  where his mum stays and collects rent for upkeep even when our dad was alive and we never bother ourselves with the proceeds from the rent even our father when he was alive never did ,so why would anyone be pressurizing the lawyer to sell it?