I will play again soon, forgotten Red Eagle says

Every once in a while, a young man from Ibadan, in the Nigerian state of Oyo, sees himself sporting the colours of a European football club.

The image is faint but the club could be Russian. He is kicking about, with teammates. The match is starting soon. He is bound to start. But before the first whistle, Vincent Onyebuchi wakes up.

He tries to catch sleep again, as if to continue the dream from where it stopped, but he cannot. Instead, he prays to the almighty that his left leg fully recovers from a horrible injury and the dream becomes reality.

After playing for several clubs in Nigeria, most notably Mocdim, Onyebuchi came to Uganda in October 2016. He did trials with URA but the four-time league champions did not take him on.

He joined Express in the January transfer window as then coach Matia Lule overhauled his squad by firing nine players and hiring eleven.

But three weeks before Onyebuchi’s short-term contract expired, tragedy struck when the centre-back broke his left leg in a league game against Proline at Muteesa II Stadium Wankulukuku.

It is exactly three years since May 9, 2017, when the Ibadan-born 26-year-old Nigerian last kicked a ball, but Onyebuchi told Daily Monitor he strongly believes his lost treasure shall soon be found.

After two months of treatment at Mengo Hospital, Lisa Medical Centre, and a night at Mulago Hospital, Onyebuchi’s state deteriorated. An infection had invaded his injury. He needed urgent help or he would lose his leg.

Those who cared, mostly Express fans led by Julius Bakunda and current club chief executive Hamza Jjunju launched a fundraising campaign to save Onyebuchi.

“The situation has worsened. The player may lose the leg due to negligence. We have had little care since this injury happened,” Remmy Makumbi, who had joined the Red Eagles together with Onyebuchi, cried out on Crowd Funder, a fundraising website. Unfortunately, the project failed.

Left to himself
The then Express chair, Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi (now State minister for youth and children affairs), disowned the campaign.

“We are not accountable at all and they should stop using the club’s name before we seek legal redress. We have done everything stipulated in Onyebuchi’s contract. I personally took him to my hospital (Lisa) and we advise him to get help elsewhere from well-wishers. Enough is enough,” Nakiwala said, according to Daily Monitor of July 7, 2017.

But public criticism forced her to ‘endorse’ the campaign though when she visited CoRSU Rehabilitation Hospital as the guest of honour on the specialised facility’s annual sports event in November 2017, she did not check on the footballer.

The rehabilitation hospital in Kisubi, Entebbe Road, is reputed for resurrecting many athletes’ careers through standard but affordable reconstructive surgeries.
But this was just the beginning of another phase of agony with a sliver of hope.

The wound had rotted.
A counsellor at CoRSU said Onyebuchi needed mental strength because the pain was also psychological. At one time his surgery was postponed because he wasn’t psychologically prepared.

An orthopaedic surgeon told the media that Onyebuchi would never play again. There was still a chance he might walk again after at least eight surgeries to reconstruct his bone, the surgeon added, but the easier yet bitter option was amputation. The player could not fathom this.

Onyebuchi imagined what he would tell his mother who had discouraged him from football, how life would go on without his other leg. He cried.
“I felt my world had ended,” he told Daily Monitor at the weekend outside the stadium where suffered the career-threatening injury.

His ordeal strikes similarities with that of netballer Elizabeth Antonet, who damaged a knee while training for the 2015 World Cup, but neither the federation nor her club National Insurance Corporation shouldered her burden.

After public outcry, National Council of Sports and individuals sponsored her bills at CoRSU.

Money in the way
For surgery, Onyebuchi needed over Shs10m. Money was coming in trickles. The Nigerian High Commission in Uganda, for instance, offered Shs1.5m. UPL contributed Shs2m.

“I also thank God for all the prayers and support from the football fraternity, fellow players and my family back home. I’m equally grateful for the great job CoRSU did. They gave me courage to believe again,” he says.
After about eight months, CoRSU discharged him when his bone was reconstructed.
He now visits a herbalist in Katosi, Ntenjeru, for more treatment. He prefers calling her a traditional doctor because in Nigeria herbalists are associated with witchcraft.

“She took care of me like her own son,” he says of the herbalist he prefers not to name.
Onyebuchi feels the bone in his once fragile, rotten leg is stronger than that in his right leg. He rates this recovery at 99 per cent. “The remaining issue is the tendon which will enable my toes to be flexible. I can run now but I can’t sprint.”

Return home?
But why would he suffer this much in a foreign land like a refugee? “I did not want to break my family’s hearts. They have high hopes in me. I must go back when I’m fine, no matter how long it will take,” he says.
His friends in Ibadan did not know of the severity of his injury. He reserves the details to a trusted few – one friend and his elder brother.
“When others ask me on Facebook I don’t reply because I know what they want to know,” he says.

The youngest of three siblings and the apple of his parents’ eyes, Onyebuchi says “we agreed with my brother not to tell my parents because they are old and I’m their darling, knowing my suffering might break their hearts.”
But how does an athlete who no longer belongs to any club survive in a foreign land?

“I always ask my God to never forsake me. And by His grace I survive. Some friends have remained supportive,” Onyebuchi explains.
In his heart there’s a special place for Abbas Byaruhanga, an Express diehard and city lawyer.
“Abbas is an amazing person. He has always been there for me… he helps me with whatever he can. May God bless him,” says the player who has since learnt a few Luganda words.

Byaruhanga said they were a group of 15 helping the player, but some have since dropped out.

Protracted dreams
Just a couple of games were left to the end of the 2016-2017 season and his short-term contract. So what if what happened didn’t happen?
“My brother, I would be playing in Russia by now. That was my plan,” Onyebuchi says, outlining the plan as Ethiopia for his next address, progressing to Egypt in three years, and then to Cyprus or Russia.

“Your play is your power. When I’m playing I know I can get many contacts… I’m saying Russia but it could even be another place because I know I’m good,” he says.
Coach Lule’s was not immediately available to comment on Onyebuchi’s confident words, but Byaruhanga believes “Express lost a player with great dedication.”

So how long does he have to wait to relaunch his pursuit?
“You can’t force nature. Even the woman treating me can’t tell when I will be fully fine,” Onyebuchi says. “But I hope, by the grace of God, this leg is fine by the end of this year.”

Where does he draw this courage from? “At CoRSU, they had given me six months for the bone to rebuild, but towards four months, the doctor said ‘you man, what do you eat? Your bone is fine.’”

After four surgeries at CoRSU, Onyebuchi told NTV he was “150 per cent sure I will play again,” citing other professionals who suffered worse complications “like Nwankwo Kanu’s heart attack…but they returned.”

The Christian carries the same conviction and still believes “if fate has it that I will play in Europe, it will happen. No matter what.”

THAT FATEFUL DAY

I don’t remember the name of that intelligent Proline striker. I was trying to intercept a pass to prevent a Proline striker from scoring (Express were already trailing 1-0 inside 47 minutes).

“My goalkeeper Fahad Katongole came charging, with studs out. My left leg was caught between the striker’s boot and the goalkeeper’s.

The ball went in and Onyebuchi’s leg broke, just above the ankle. Referee Ali Kaddu caleld for medical team and later signaled abandonment of the match.

“I think if it was only the striker’s leg nothing would have happened. But my goalkeeper came with too much force. I don’t blame anyone. Each of us was doing their job. It was fate. My contract was soon expiring but I was injured on duty. But I won’t blame anyone…not even the minister (Nakiwala).”

“I only have fondness for Express, a club that accepted me when URA rejected me. It is my club. I owe the fans more. But I could say Express yet it’s going to be Bright Stars or say KCCA and it’s Vipers. So all I need is getting back and play. My play will determine.”

"My club. I owe the fans more. But I could say Express yet it’s going to be Bright Stars or say KCCA and it’s Vipers. So all I need is getting back and play. My play will determine.”

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