At the level of club football, there are only two coaches that can be ranked bigger than Adegboye Onigbinde – Kadiri Ikhana and Okey Emodi. This is on the grounds of their jinx – breaking feats in the once elusive and evasive CAF Champions League in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
While Ikhana became the first Nigerian coach to lift the CAF Champions League trophy with Enyimba in 2003, Emodi retained it in 2004 still with the Aba Elephants.
Onigbinde struck silver with Shooting Stars in the Champions League finals in 1984. Yet, neither of them was more accomplished than Onigbinde in general football considerations as he worked hard to become CAF and FIFA instructor.
A cursory survey from the level of national team records, only Stephen Keshi held higher or better result than Onigbinde as the former was the first and so far the only Nigerian coach to have been bedecked with the AFCON golden medal. Keshi was one of the few African players (about four of them) to have brought home the Nations Cup both as captain and coach.
Onigbinde was the first Nigerian coach to reach the African Nations Cup final in 1984 in Cote d’Ivoire where he unexpectedly hit silver after the team lost 1- 3 to Cameroon.
One unique feature of Onigbinde was his mysterious career operations which mostly went unnoticed. Each time any football club or the national team disregarded Onigbinde, that team must certainly pass through devastating and harrowing experiences.
In 1983, the NFF called on Onigbinde to manage the Super Eagles following Nigeria’s horrible performances in the 1982 Nations Cup Finals in Libya and disgraceful elimination from the 1982 World Cup Finals in Spain. Up to this moment, Libya ’82 was Nigeria’s worst outing in AFCON history.
As he took over the national team, Onigbinde revived the Super Eagles that were already wingless and without talons. He instantly replaced the 1980 stars, leaving out only mercurial Henry Nwosu and fantastic Muda Lawal. He even made Keshi the captain of his revitalized team. He went a step further by encouraging younger players like the ever enterprising Chibuzor Ehilegbu, defence minister Yisa Sofoluwe, sensational Paul Kingsley, Clement Temile, Charles Osuji, Tarila Okorowanta, Rashidi Yekini and few others.
Onigbinde did marvellously, restoring Nigeria’s greatness in African football. Most remarkably, he eventually made Nigeria to overtake Ghana, as his newly assembled Super Eagles beat the then reigning African champions, the Black Stars, 2-1, in a Nations Cup group game opener played on March 5, 1984 in Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire.
The man of the match was wonder boy Chibuzor Ehilegbu who messed up Ghana and shocked them with his winner after Nwosu had given Nigeria the lead.
The 1984 mystery was when Onigbinde mysteriously left out keeper Peter Rufai who was outstanding in the previous two games against Algeria and Egypt to introduce Pat Okala who was seemingly nervous in the opening game against Ghana and the second group match against Malawi that surprisingly ended 2-2, on the final day against Cameroon.
Again, Onigbinde, on the final day against Cameroon completely avoided the magic man of the tournament, Ehilegbu, who had been really outstanding in all other matches just as he played Nwosu too deep into the defensive midfield. In the end, Cameroon won 3-1 although Nigeria scored first through Muda Lawal.
The NFF unable to come to terms with why the Indomitable Lions devoured the Super Eagles, sacked Onigbinde. It was a complete disaster as Nigeria failed to qualify for both the Nations Cup in Egypt in 1986 as well as the Mexico ’86 World Cup Finals.
The same scenario played out again, after the Korea/Japan 2002 World Cup Finals where Onigbinde, once more, rescued the Super Eagles from total decay and ruination. The national team was hit by gross indiscipline, leadership failure, lack of technical and tactical know-how, etc. All these deficiencies and many more manifested during the Nations Cup Finals in Mali in March, 2002 where the Eagles bowed to Senegal on penalty shoot-out after putting up lacklus performances in the group and quarter final games.
On that account, Onigbinde was drafted to the Korea/Japan World Cup bound Eagles, to replicate his 1983/84 miracle. He commenced beautifully winning some tough friendly games, including few European countries. Onigbinde’s greatest achievement was, just as he did in his first stint, the discovery/encouragement of budding players like Vincent Enyeama, Osaze Odewingie, and Christopher Justice. While Enyeama and Odewingie blossomed to greatness, injury cutdown Justice’s career quite early.
In spite of his hard work and appreciable success, the NFF sacked Onigbinde. Like in 1984/86, Nigeria mysteriously failed to qualify for the next edition of the World Cup, staged in Germany in 2006. Little known Angola parading virtually all local based players knocked Nigeria out and moved on to play in the Mundial.
There was another incident that happened in Owerri with Onigbinde at the centre stage. In 1994, Heartland FC then known as Iwuanyanwu Nationale, campaigning in the CAF Champions League, lost their home game to visiting Rascing FC of Cameroon, 1 – 2 in Owerri.
The management looked towards Onigbinde to redeem their image. The Modakeke high chief took up that challenge. He came to Owerri, restored the team’s confidence and worked on its technical understanding of the game to be played in Cameroon.
After 90 minutes, Heartland defeated their host 2- 3 and qualified for the quarter-finals. Onigbinde made demands but the Owerri club turned them down. Onigbinde who was left out in the trip to Tunisia headed home to Ibadan via Lagos. Unfortunately, while Heartland were returning home having lost the first leg of the quarter-final encounter, the Oriental plane airlifting them crashed, killing about six passengers including two players, the pilot and two of the hostess. That is, Heartland disregarded Onigbinde and met their Waterloo. The incident raised the issue of Juju in football, which the Modakeke high chief was to illustrate with a personal experience.
During the Ife, Modakeke inter tribal war, Onigbinde informed a journalist that he was a prime target. He was a high chief of Modakeke and a respected community leader thus Ife warriors wanted him eliminated at all cost. His village house was bombed while he was there but he escaped unhurt.
This surely gave credence to his belief that there is juju in football. “Do not allow anybody to deceive you. There is juju not just in football but in all aspects of life. It works but it does not take you far because its powers are limited. At the end of the day what wins games is the technical superiority of a team”, Onigbinde stated.
Perhaps, nothing dramatizes Onigbinde’s controversial life than when in 2002 after he was reappointed Super Eagles coach, the erstwhile Shooting Stars coach announced that he would no longer be identified as Festus Onigbinde but Adegboye Onigbinde. He maintained that he never knew the meaning of Festus as it was an adopted name, insisting his parents named him Adegboye at birth.
Onigbinde believed that Teslim Balogun was the best player Nigeria ever produced and Father Ticko his best foreign coach to have handled the national team.
No matter how you look at it, Onigbinde, who died on March 9, 2026 at 88, though mysterious and controversial, was an accomplished coach. May his soul rest in peace.
