Segun Odegbami, former Green Eagles captain, has alleged that Rashidi Yekini’s close friends were behind his death in 2012.
The ‘mathematical’ as he’s fondly called disclosed this in an interview on Channels Television.
Odegbami, who captained Nigeria to their first title at the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations in Lagos, said Yekini was never insane but was callously murdered due to his generosity.
“His people actually went and abducted him from his car and took him to a native doctor of some sort to cure him of his ‘insanity. Why insanity?…because he was funding so many philanthropic projects, giving people his money, which he had kept in the bank for so long.
“All through his professional career, he didn’t spend a dime of the money he was getting from Europe, so he had a lot of money in UBA at the time, because one of the managers was my friend. They had even advised him to invest but with his own native intelligence, he did not do much investment.
“He built his house, did some things but he had a lot of money so he felt like distributing and they said he was mad so they took him to the native doctor and started giving him all kinds of concoctions and the man passed on. So, that’s why I said he could have been murdered,” he said.
Rashidi Yekini, who is Nigeria’s record goal scorer, became popular worldwide with his celebration after scoring the Super Eagles’ first ever World Cup goal against Bulgaria at the 1994 World Cup. He died of mysterious circumstances in 2012.
