Based on his successful exploits in the world of football, Edo State-born ex-international, Victor Nosahkare Ikpeba, remains one of Nigeria’s greatest as far as the round leather game is concerned. Many years after his retirement, the former African Footballer of the Year has remained relevant in the scheme of things through his new role as a football analyst, just as he has been able to maintain the high profile life he began to live on account of the megabucks he was making while playing active football.
The dreadlocked dude has also remained a single parent since the demise of his wife, Atinuke, many years ago.
But Ikpeba appears to still be so sentimentally attached to his late wife that taking another is not on the cards now. He discloses that he actually got involved with another woman, but the relationship crashed due to certain issues. Although he has not written off getting into another relationship, he says he’s taking his time as he will consider marriage at the appropriate
time.
“Marriage is a nice thing because you need stability as a man. You need a woman at home you can share ideas with, talk to, play with, laugh with; you can fight sometimes and settle. Marriage comes with a lot of packages and I think you want to have a woman, who is your best friend. I am old-fashioned in some ways. So, it’s not something that will happen for one year, six months or five years and it scatters. It should last forever. So, it’s difficult to trust from both sides and so I am taking my time. But certainly, at the right time, I will remarry,” he says.
I’m taking my time
Ikpeba, however, admits there had been situations where he had to stand his ground to avoid jumping into marriage headlong without taking precautions to prevent another disastrous
outing.
He says, “Seriously, women want to get married. I won’t say I have not found myself in situations, but what I am saying is that it’s tough and my situation is very peculiar in some ways and I don’t want to jump into what I will regret tomorrow. I don’t want a repeat of what happened in the past. You know sometimes, this marriage thing is about luck, because you can’t really say what will happen in future. So, it’s pretty difficult. People might be wondering why I’ve not remarried and so on. I am taking my time. I need time because I have suffered a lot losing someone that was very dear to me, but I have to move on and I am not comparing the women I meet now with her because I met her in the late 1980s. So, it’s a different world. The women we had that time and now are different. I pray one day, I will get the right woman that I will be happy with. She will be my friend, a friend to my kids, because whoever that is going to marry me, is going to marry my kids, too.
“I don’t want to be changing women every other five or two years. I lost one; the other one, we had issues. Although we are still very close, we take care of the kids. We have a fantastic understanding and I can understand why she does not want to come to Nigeria. Basically, if I want to settle down, I want to settle with a woman that I will spend the rest of my life with. I don’t want a marriage that will become problematic. That is the major fear, but sometimes you have to take risk in life. There is nothing wrong to try. I will keep on trying and I am sure I will get
there.”
How I’ve maintained star player’s lifestyle
But the former star player of French top club side, Monaco, counts himself lucky to have the wherewithal to live a comfortable and decent lifestyle, unlike some other ex-internationals.
He says this is not due to a state of perfection, but his adherence to wise counsel, which had helped him to remain focused to do the right thing at the right time.
He explains, “In my own case, maybe I was lucky because I won’t say I have not lived a crazy life, too, but I think I was well advised and I took the advice.
“My friends like Sam Audu and some of my few team mates were like, Victor, you have the personality and you can talk. That’s why I engaged myself with Supersport and I enjoy doing it. I am happy about the whole thing. I am also involved with Delta State FA. But before I got myself engaged, most people don’t know I have my transport company. I had to tell myself that if you don’t do anything with this money you make, it will go away. Basically, I want to live a good life. I have my home, I have my family, I have the basic things. I have seen life, I lived in one of the most glamorous places on earth, Mount Carlos, and I have also experienced the other side. I lost my wife. It’s beyond money, but I try to live my life modestly. My advice is that you should engage yourself always. For the ex-internationals that are struggling, it touches my heart that they are, but I count myself lucky that I was accepted by Supersport. It has given me the platform to be where I am today.”
Unrealised childhood dreams
While growing up, although Dandy Victor loved the round leather game, he never gave professional football any serious thought. His ambition was to become a lawyer, having been fascinated by their gown and wig, but fate played a fast one on him and he couldn’t realise his dream. His later desire to join the Army never materialised. He ended up on the pitch, even after studying Business Administration.
He says, “Sincerely, my childhood ambition was never to be a professional player, but I loved football from the beginning. I mean when I was four, five and it was later I knew my father was involved in football, too. So, maybe its genetic (laughs). When I was in primary and secondary school, I liked football and I was involved in table tennis. I was passionate about sports. As a young boy, I think I was thinking of becoming a lawyer, because I loved the way the lawyers dress, but later when I had the opportunity to go to YabaTech to do Business Administration, I said maybe I would go to the banking sector. Even at a particular time, I thought I might even join the Army.
“I never in my wildest dream thought I would become a professional footballer. But when that window of opportunity opened, I was invited for the under-17 and I took it. I said I wanted to make a name for myself, because I had the talent and I believed in myself. When I was in ACB Bank, what they were paying us was not much, but we were very passionate with the football we were playing. We wanted to be like Amesiemeka, the Chukwus, Odegbami, Muda Lawal, because those were big household names in the 70s and 80s in Nigeria. Of course, we knew the remuneration abroad was better than what we were getting back then here, but my focus was to do well in Belgium and move to a bigger country.”
Need to be frugal
The dreadlock-wearing ex-international, however, confesses missing his active football days, especially because he can no longer spend as much as he used to do in those days that he was sure of a regular weekly inflow of megabucks into his
bank account.
Ikpeba recalls, “I think it was more of preparing myself for after football than ever concentrating on what I would miss. But, of course, that is not to say you don’t sometime reminisce on memories of your playing days. There is a beginning and there is an end. Fifteen years as a professional soccer player, having played in about five to six different clubs, the experience was fantastic. Some experiences were not great, but I would take it because it’s not everything that will be fantastic in life. But in summing everything up, I am happy. I had it to the highest level. Some of my colleagues did not get to
that level.
“So, I take pride in the fact that I played for Super Eagles and was part of the Olympic team that won gold. I could have continued my career to play in Quatar or China, but I decided to stop because I had it all after 15 years. It’s not about money anymore. My kids are very young, they lost their mother and this is the time I need to play the fatherly role more to these children. And to think of it, how much do you need to live a normal life? I need a normal life. Maybe I don’t spend the kind of money I was spending when I was still playing active football, but I am happy with the way my life
is going.”
