Former Ajax footballer Tijjani Babangida has been admitted to hospital in a critical but stable condition after a traffic accident in his native Nigeria. The Nigerian Football Association reported this to various media from that country. His brother Ibrahim did not survive the accident. The former FC Volendam player will be buried on Friday.
The accident happened on the highway from Kaduna to Zaria. Tijjani Babangida’s wife and a maid were also in the car and were taken to a hospital. Babangida, 50, is conscious, according to the Nigerian Football Association.
The quick attacker came to Roda JC from Nigeria in 1991. After a number of seasons at that club and at VVV, he became an Ajax player in the summer of 1996. There he became national champion in 1998 and won the KNVB Cup. The following season ‘Baba’ won the cup again. He played more than a hundred games in the Ajax shirt before leaving in 2003 to play football in China. Babangida won gold with Nigeria at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was active at the 1998 and 2002 World Championships.
No breakthrough Ibrahim
Ibrahim Babangida is 47 years old. He came to the Netherlands in the wake of his brother and played football for FC Volendam between 1997 and 2002. Although he was also lightning fast, a breakthrough was not forthcoming. He played 52 games for the club from the fishing village, in more than half of the cases he was a substitute. In total, Ibrahim Babangida scored seven goals.
