Since I heard from Bishop David Oyedepo that the Holy Bible is God’s constitution for the good living of man, I have always consulted it in writing this Column.

That is why today I have checked again what it says about living for others, a virtue that my namesake and man of many parts, Chief (Dr) Patrick Olusegun Odegbami (MON) carries.

Galatians 6:2 instructs men to bear one another’s burdens. That is to support and help each other through difficult times. From the mid 1990s when our paths crossed through his pet project for discovering young football talents, the Shell Cup which Shell Petroleum Development Company sponsored, I have known him to be living for others.

His office on Oweh street in Fadeyi part of Lagos then where he ran the Shell Cup through his first known business outfit, World Wide Sports, WWS, was like a Mecca for his former teammates in either IICC Shooting Stars or the Green Eagles.

He invited them to join him in coordinating the Shell Cup either as coaches, match assessors or any other position he found them useful in. That way he gave them livelihood. He had other projects like the President Cup football competition where he also drafted these former teammates.

Today, he runs a sports school in his native Wasimi in Ogun State, Segun Odegbami International College and Soccer Academy, SOCA. His colleagues are part of those running it.

But he didn’t stop at providing means of livelihood for some of them, including other sports men and women but carried matters of their welfare on his shoulders.

Some Nigerians may not remember that he had a hand in the country’s first Olympics gold medal which Chioma Ajunwa won.

Ajunwa was just coming out of a drug ban and was abandoned as a no-hoper by the sports authorities. Odegbami gave her all the support she needed and she wowed the world at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. Odegbami’s reward is the chieftaincy title he has from Ajunwa’s Mbaise community in Imo State.

Another area he has stood out is using his relationship with the Chairman of Air Peace airline, Mr. Allen Onyema to honour the forgotten heros of the 1976 Montreal Olympics which Nigeria led African countries to boycott because of the Apartheid regime in South Africa then.

Today members of that team have their names on the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, NIIA Hall of Fame. They were also honoured by Air Peace as the airline’s Ambassadors with the privilege of flying free on any route in Nigeria and once a year on any international route.

The other area Odegbami has been living for his colleagues is drawing attention of their health issues to both the government and people of Nigeria.

That was how former Green Eagles goalkeeper Peter Fregene got help from billionaire Femi Otedola, who later succumbed to death a few months ago.

The most recent one is his call for support for ailing Kadiri Ikhana which he used both in his newspaper Columns and Radio station Eagle 7 FM to announce.

In his piece ‘Another Eagle on death throes’, he talked about how frustrating it is for him to keep talking about the death of ex players.

He wrote “We are yet to finish mourning and to bury four of the five sports heroes when frustrating news comes, two days ago, of another sports hero (Kadiri Ikhana) at death’s gates.”

It is shameful that it took Odegbami to shout out about Ikhana who is hospitalized somewhere in Edo State for the Edo State government to wake up and promise to assist a player his mates called Kawawa in his heydays as a pillar of Bendel Insurance that brought honour to the state.

It was while going through Odegbami’s archives that I saw what he wrote on the plight of another ex Green Eagles player, Shefiu Mohammed who also benefitted from Mr. Onyema’s generosity.

According to Odegbami, but for the “re-unification of the Green Eagles, Shefiu would have remained in his narrow world with his small family in Jalingo, managing the harsh realities of his hard but spartan life-after-sports.”

His story on Shefiu brought tears to my eyes. Here was somebody that had the offer of travelling by road to Jalingo to Abuja in order to fly to Lagos on Air Peace as one of the Ambassadors to attend the ceremony where Mr. Onyema was to honour them but decided to travel by road all the way because, according to Odegbami, he said he didn’t want to miss the event following frequent flight cancellations in Nigeria.

According to Odegbami, “he left Jalingo seven clear days to the date of the events. He travelled in a lorry loaded with cargo, on a hazardous trip on treacherous roads that took 3 days.”

He attended the ceremony, got the honour and some financial reward. He told Odegbami that he would plough the money into his cattle business with Odegbami promising to help him expand the business by investing in it.

A grateful Shefiu told his family and they all called to thank him ceaselessly. Without Odegbami, Shefiu would have remained in Jalingo unsung and neglected by both the Taraba State and Federal Governments.

In Genesis 12: 2-3, God told Abraham “I will bless you… and you will be a blessing to others” .

That is what Odegbami is today. God has blessed him, first with good health and strength to be a man of many parts and he uses his success and contacts to bring joy to others. He is doing what the government is supposed to be doing for the country’s heroes and heroines. And his bless- ings shall never cease.

N:B.. This piece was written before Ikhana reportedly left the hospital .