Israel often came late to games at Onikan Stadium (former King George V Stadium) in Lagos – the then Mecca of Nigerian football – due to a hypertensive condition, and nervousness that his team might lose. Borrowing the logo of a Brazilian team of a flamingo, the players of Stationary Stores– nicknamed the “Flaming Flamingos” for igniting pitches with their exciting play – were decked out in a yellow jersey with maroon stripes, and the round logo of “SSFC” with a flamingo emblazoned in the middle of the stripe. They also wore yellow shorts with yellow handkerchiefs hanging around their necks. These colourful outfits added to the glamour and flamboyance of Stationary Stores in the city that revels in repeating the common refrain: “Eko for Show.” The team played an attractive brand of flowing, fluent, and attacking football that Lagosians quickly embraced. Stores’ main rivals in Lagos were ECN, Julius Berger, Railways, and Leventis, as the club started dominating the Lagos Challenge Cup.
Israel was determined to end Ghana’s dominance of West African football, and Stationary Stores was the first Nigerian team to play in the African Cup of Champion Clubs in 1968. Adebajo was a pioneering Pan-African, employing players from Ghana, Togo, Dahomey (now Benin), and other West African countries. Friendlies were organised with teams like Ghana’s Asante Kotoko. A decade before the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was born in 1975 through the vision of another prominent Nigerian – Adebayo Adedeji – Adebajo was already practising the free movement of labour across the sub-region. The man who washed the team’s jerseys -“Baba Wash and Press” – was himself a Togolese national.
Israel was also a competent, passionate, and generous sports administrator. His career in this sector was impressive, transferring his management skills from his business to the arena of sports. He served on the board of the Lagos Football Association, and was Treasurer of the Nigerian Football Association (NFA) from 1958 until his death in 1969. The NFA oversaw the building of the National Stadium in Lagos’s Surulere district in 1961. Subsequent Nigerian sports administrators, however, allowed the stadium to fall into an embarrassing state of disrepair, and it closed in 2004.Adebajo’s era of sports administrators seemed a far cry from today’s largely venal, incompetent, and corrupt crop of administrators running Nigerian sports. He generously imported the special jerseys used by the national football team – the then “Green Eagles”– during the 1968 Olympic qualifiers. In 1965, he had also created the Youth Sports Federation of Apapa (YSFA), consistently championing the cause of youth development.
The all-conquering Stores team that won two Challenge cups in a row in 1967 and 1968 had players that have since become legends of the Nigerian game and part of the country’s sporting pantheon: acrobatic goalkeepers Peter Fregene and Inua Lawal Rigogo – nicknamed the “Flying Cat” by Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah – ; Tony “World 2” Igwe; Segun “Rock of Gibraltar” Olumodeji; Peter “Eusebio” Anieke; Sam Opone; Muyiwa“Lucky Boy” Oshode; Willie Andrews; Baba Alli; and Mohammed Lawal. Nine members of this team famously represented Nigeria at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, earning a creditable 3-3 draw against Brazil.
The support of Stationary Stores in Lagos was fanatical, and many have compared it to a cult, and even a religion. As the most well-supported team in the ethnically cosmopolitan city, Stores also sought to unite diverse ethnic and class groups for a common cause in the nation’s then capital, particularly during its own halcyon days, even as the Nigerian civil raged between 1967 and 1970.
Israel’s Last Days: So Much To Do, So Little Time
Israel’s death in July 1969 was a shock to his family, friends, and fans. He fell ill on Palm Sunday in April 1969, and became increasingly fatigued. He was eventually diagnosed as suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. A team of doctors – led by Ekpo Eyo and Aderonmi Laja – attended to him. He started working increasingly from home, dictating letters to his private secretary, and going occasionally to the office. As he observed his health deteriorating, Israel – renowned for his meticulousness – went to his lawyer, Adeyanju Osijo, by the end of May 1969 to ask him to start preparing a will.
He signed the will in his NOSS Stores office – witnessed by two staff members – on 25 June: exactly a month before his death. He asked that the date of the will be back-dated to his birthday on 21 January, as this would be his birthday gift to his wives and children. The lawyer kept a copy of the will, and deposited copies with Standard and Barclays banks on the instruction of the testator. On 24 June, one of the sick man’s wives, Irene, organised a Sara (thanksgiving prayer meal) attended by Israel’s brother Luke, and some office staff.
Three days later, he visited his wife, Adunni, to consult on naming his last-born child Adefemi Mofolorunso, born just four days earlier. Advised to seek more specialised treatment abroad, he left Nigeria on 28 June 1969, never to return alive. On the same day as his departure for London, he went personally to Standard Bank in Apapa to procure traveller’s cheques for his trip. He was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital on arrival in London for about three weeks, discharged, and re-admitted. He stayed part of the time with his sister Florence Odunsi, who visited him in hospital every day. Sheila Sherlock – an expert in liver diseases – was the doctor in charge of his care at the hospital. She reported Israel’s death on the morning of 25 July.
Adebajo’s funeral was a huge affair, with throngs of people and footballers of Stationary Stores juggling the ball along the route as part of the large cortège accompanying the hearse to the burial site in his country home in Naforija. Musicians composed elegies, with the most famous being juju superstar, Sunny Ade and his Green Spot Band’s song “Late Israel Adebajo.” Israel was buried near his parents’ graves. A striking large, marble white statue in his image – clad in traditional flowing robes with his signature upright, tall cap and long chain hanging around his neck – was erected above the grave on the first anniversary of his death in July 1970.
To be continued on Sunday
Adebajo is Director, Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
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