The legendary Segun Odegbami has provided an update on the condition of fellow great Peter Fregene, who has been battling with illness for some time.
Fregene, a goalkeeping great with the national team in the 1960s through to the 1980s, is lying critically ill in Sapele, Delta State and Odegbami is soliciting for help for the former footballer, who is in his late 70s.
In a heartfelt post shared widely on social media this week, Odegbami, who is a broadcaster and syndicated columnist, provided details of Fregene’s current condition and the efforts to find healing.
The post is reproduced below:
“I cannot post any more pictures of Peter.
Last night, I spoke with the doctor on duty at the Obule Medical Centre, Sapele, where Peter is on life-support, connected to an oxygen cylinder. He is unconscious but alive and breathing!
“At the hospital, he is fed and medicated intravenously, and, according to the doctor, his situation is very bad. In short, it is now ‘touch and go’.
“I also spoke with Tina, his dutiful wife, that angel from heaven that has been taking care of Peter through all the decades of his medical travails and trials.
“The doctor tells me that the hospital is doing its best for Peter Fregene, but that his condition has not improved much since he was brought in four days ago, and that’s why the hospital has had to refer him to a bigger and more equipped medical facility, the Teaching Hospital in Oghara. He is to be moved there immediately for further evaluation of what more can be done for him.
“The doctor said: “I am not God, I can’t say more than that. We are doing our best for him here. He is still alive and breathing”.
“So, Tina says that the family will move him by ambulance this morning to Oghara. She is holding out courageously, still strong in her faith that he will eventually be okay despite the gloomy prognosis.
“She says that she has received calls from the Federal Ministry of Sports Development in Abuja, as well as the Delta State Ministry of Sports inquiring about Peter’s condition and promising to get back to her as soon as possible.
“A friend to all footballers, Bishop Felix Femi Ajakaye of the Ekiti diocese of the Catholic Church, prayed for Peter Fregene last night when we spoke. His simple prayer sums up every thing for me: ‘May the Will of our Father in heaven be done’. Amen.”
