April 27, (THEWILL) – Lawrence Aletile, aka Seyi Law, has donated N200,000 to former Super Eagles winger, Femi Opabunmi.
Opabunmi ended his football career in 2006, after he started experiencing vision problems in one of his eyes.
The former Shooting Stars player, who represented Nigeria at the 2001 U-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago, underwent an eye surgery in 2008 and has not played professional football since then.
Opabunmi, was the toast of Nigerian football fans with his left foot when he was an active player.
Seyi Law had taken to Twitter on Monday, to ask for the whereabouts of the former winger, who was likened to Emmanuel Amuneke.
While speaking with The Punch on why he donated money to Opabunmi, the comedian stated that the ex-footballer’s talent and predicament made him donate the money.
“I was just on Twitter and I saw pictures of some boys of the Golden Eaglets and I just remembered Opabunmi because in 2001 he used to tie white plaster around his fingers and how well he played at the competition and was only beaten to the best player award by Florent Sinama Pongolle probably because of his goals.
“He performed so well and at some points, we were tipping him to become a replacement for Emmanuel Amuneke. That made me remember him and that was why I posted before somebody told me that he was suffering from eye problems and other challenges.
“The person directed me to a Youtube link which I watched and confirmed that truly he had an eye issue and that was why I was asking for a link to him.
“I remembered the competition very well and how he scored six goals playing from the wing and in 2002, coach Onigbinde took him to the World Cup in South/Korea and he was the youngest player.
“He was a gem with great talent and he was not celebrated, yet we celebrated those who were not even close to him. He had a lot of prospects, but it is so unfortunate what happened to him and I was almost brought to tears when I was talking to him and explained to me how the issue started when he was in France and had to travel to the US to see a doctor.”
