Johnny as he is known by friends and fans was a big football star. As a Super Eagle beside Okocha, Oliseh and the rest, he scored goals. For years he was one of the models for the Nigerian youth and most likely also for German teenagers, as he spent most of his career, playing in the Bundesliga scoring over a hundred goals.
Akpoborie’s fortunes changed for the worse in 2001, when a ship (MV Etireno) run by his family was said to be carrying children into slavery in Gabon when it was stopped in Benin Republic. The BBC would eventually describe the former star as “Mr Unlucky” in an article after the incident.
Now, almost ten years after, Akpoborie is granting an interview for the first since the incident, which he admits literally ended his career. This interview is coming on the heels of a documentary on the incident titled ‘Das Schiff des Torjäger’ (The Goalgetter’s Ship) and directed by Swiss Heidi Speconga. It tells the story of the “MV Etireno”, its passengers and owner and is attempting to shed light on a saga that has left many questions unanswered.
NEXTSports spoke with Akpoborie about his fate, the abrupt end of his career, his grouse with UNICEF as well as indemnity claims and his overall struggle for justice.
It’s almost ten years since you were alleged to own a child slave trade ship, an allegation that changed your life dramatically. How did you feel when you first heard about it?
When I consider it now, I can only laugh at it. But at the time it was horrible for me as someone made up an untrue story and used my name for publicity but I am in contact with my lawyers to institute legal review.
UNICEF reported approximately 250 child slaves that were supposed to be carried on board of your ship and cast a slur at you as the owner. You said someone used your name to gain international publicity. How did this affect your personal and professional life?
Oh well, not to put too fine a point on it, it destroyed everything for me. Even today when walking the streets in Lagos, people would shout at me saying: “Look, that’s the child slave trader from thence, that’s him”. But if one know’s the whole story and the details of the unproven allegations from UNICEF, then one can imagine how it affected my life. If you had asked to interview me two years after this incident, I would have declined right away, but now I am glad to be able to talk about it. I just cannot abandon this, that what I had built up in twenty years got destroyed in fifteen minutes. In the documentary one can see that UNICEF had not just committed a blunder, no they had been aware of it and knew full well what they had done and eventually hazarded the consequences. If one had asked me previously to tout for UNICEF for the child slave topic I would have agreed, but now it will get very expensive for them.
From your point of view, UNICEF used your name to draw international attention to the child-slave-issue. How do you evaluate this problem against the backdrop of your story?
When talking of child slaves, one has to define what it is in order to understand it in detail.
There are so many different interpretations in Africa. For instance in Benin one might find children that grew up and worked for their uncle or aunt in order to support their parents back home financially. If one talks about children being sold on a market, it’s new to me. I have been across Africa, but haven’t found any evidence that this is true. One shall show those children to me, then I’ll believe it, but now I don’t believe anything.
As you are planning to go to court, what exactly are you accusing UNICEF of?
After this story we couldn’t use both ships any more, our commercial activity was destroyed as the ships were eventually demolished. Basically, we suddenly couldn’t do anything as people thought we were actually responsible. I couldn’t play football any more. My life had been destroyed.
Last December, the film “Das Schiff des Torjäger (The Goalgetter’s Ship) by Swiss director Heidi Speconga was released. What do you link to it and what does it mean to you personally as you featured?
At the beginning I wanted to run away from it; I didn’t want to talk to them. But later we met in Switzerland and I gave them the go ahead. The information that I gained from the research within the scope of the documentary were very siginificant to me as UNICEF didn’t give me the opportunity to talk to the children who were on board the ship at the time. It also gave me courage, because now I had something to prove the falsity of UNICEF’s statements.
A 2001 CNN report tells another story of the events that differs from that of UNICEF. One can read about contradictory assertions regarding the incident. In this context, they speak of 43 children that were found aboard the MV Etireno and according to UNICEF and Tierres des Hommes were destined for slavery. How can you explain this?
This is just a deliberate misrepresentation. Not a single child aboard destined to be sold, not even were they alone. All were accompanied by parents or other companions on their way to Gabon. That had also been confirmed by the children questioned in the documentary. We, as the company didn’t even sell tickets to them, they bought it somewhere else. I don’t really know what UNICEF talks about. It is a mistake that needs to be corrected in court.
Why exactly should anyone be interested in a misrepresentation of facts?
I honestly don’t know. We have all documents of permit from the departure and the arrival of the ship. I have done my own researches in Gabon, Lome, and Benin and talked to the people on the spot and to UNICEF officials. How can it be that UNICEF in Benin saw 43 children aboard and UNICEF in Gabon claims the opposite? If UNICEF was right, the ship wouldn’t have gotten permit to departure in Gabon at the first place.
So you call it a sort of smear campaign?
Absolutely. We got the stories, facts and also several eye-witnesses.
For some years you have been working as a FIFA licensed agent in Nigeria and Africa. What are you doing exactly and how would you assess the opportunities for Nigerian talent to become professionals?
It’s just all about football. Scouting talent is always hard. One is always on the run but it gave me the chance to think things over and it eventually gave me the opportunity to continue working in the football branch after the incident of ten years ago.
It’s fun for me to see the boys play. But like I said, it’s very hard to scout them. As Nigeria is a big country, fewer good players live in the cities but rather in rural areas. That makes it very difficult to reach them. Also corruption is a barrier.
Could you be more specific about that?
The people playing in the national team are people who have money to pay, to gain the attention of the scouts, and that’s why they are in the public. The right people live in the villages and that’s what I am working on currently, to provide young talented children who normally wouldn’t have a chance in Africa with the opportunity of a future to return later to help their families just like me.
Is corruption also a topic within the Nigerian national team?
Well, I witnessed some trifles when I was playing. But I only say thereto; that I hope it’s not true. It’s of course a problem but one has to choose the right coach for the national team otherwise it will be an ongoing issue.
Can you be more specific about the mentioned incidents?
No, for the moment I have to keep it to myself but I always believed that it is better to have a European coach. That’s very important for us.
Footballers in Nigeria and Africa often make false age-claims to carve out careers in clubs and the national team. As a former footballer please give a professional opinion on that and give an idea how to solve the problem.
I really have to admit it’s a difficult topic. Seen from the Nigerian perspective it breaks our national team as the right people cannot get the chance of playing. I was in school when I played for the U-17 team. Now years later there are still some people who played 4-5 years in the Nigerian League and returned to play for the U-17 again. It is just ridiculous. That breaks our football. I don’t have any idea how to solve the problem but to provide a future for football one has to come up with solution.
