Sam Okwaraji: How Nigerian Star With Master's Degree Died On The Football Field At 25

Sam Okwaraji fought tooth and nail to don the green-white-green colours of his fatherland. When ULM’s manager asked the Nigerian Football Association to pay an “estimated cost of $45,000” for Okwaraji’s match bonus and an expected loss in the club’s gate tickets for the period in which Okwaraji would be on national duty, the player stood up against the club, reminding his employers that he understood what his contract stipulated.
In what would become one of the saddest days in sports in Nigeria, hundreds of thousands of football fans watched agonisingly as Okwaraji slumped on the pitch less than fifteen minutes from the end of a 1990 Group C World Cup qualifier against Angola in Surulere, Lagos on August 12, 1989. He never got up.
It took Okwaraji only 10 games to be hailed as one of the country’s finest footballers but he was also respected for his rare honesty, dedication and accountability.