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Former WAFU President, Ogufere marks 90th birthday with autobiography presentation

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Long-standing football administrator and president of the West African Football Union (WAFU) when it was an entity with 15 member countries, Chief Jonathan Boytie Ogufere will mark his 90th birthday with a book launch at the Muson Centre in Lagos on Saturday.

The book is titled “Through the Furnace of Time”. It will be the climax of a two-day birthday celebration which kicks off with a thanksgiving service at the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim, Mount Zion National Headquarters at Tejuosho in Lagos.

Exceptionally gifted with good health, Ogufere at 90 reads without glasses and goes to work everyday. He had been in sports since 1967 when as a staff member of the the then Post & Telecommunications (P&T) he founded the P&T Rockets FC in Benin.

When he was transferred to Enugu, he replicated the action by establishing in 1970, the P&T Vasco da Gama FC which engaged  Enugu Rangers in one of the fiercest local derby in Nigerian football.

One major member of his squad is Dr. Patrick Ekeji who later played for the national team before venturing into administration  rising to the top as the Director General of the National Sports Commission.

Ogufere was for over 10 years a member of the executive committee of the then Nigeria Football Association, NFA.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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