MADRID, 10 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Former Ajax Amsterdam player Tijani Babangida, brother of former FC Barcelona footballer Haruna Babangida, is in critical condition after suffering a traffic accident in Nigeria, his native country, in which his younger brother Ibrahim, also a former footballer, died and in which both his wife and son have been injured.
According to the Nigerian newspaper ‘The Punch’, the accident occurred on Thursday in the race that connects the Nigerian towns of Kaduna – the birthplace of the Babangida brothers – and Zaria, although the reasons for the accident have not been revealed.
Ibrahim died instantly and will be buried this Friday, while Tijani, in critical condition, was taken to a hospital, as was the wife of the former Ajax player, his son and a family employee. Hospital sources assure that the former winger of the Dutch team is “conscious.”
Ibrahim Babangida, who was 47 years old, was world champion with Nigeria in the 1993 U-17 World Cup. Tijani, 50, was capped for Nigeria on 36 occasions – in which he scored five goals – and played with the ‘ Super Águilas’ World Cup ’98, in which they reached the round of 16.
Among his main achievements is the gold won at the ’96 Atlanta Olympic Games, as well as a runner-up finish in the Africa Cup in 2000. He played between 1996 and 2001 for Ajax, with 102 games played and 25 goals and with whom he celebrated one Eredivisie and two Dutch Cups.
Both are brothers of the left winger Haruna Babangida, who joined the youth ranks of FC Barcelona at the age of 15 and who played in the reserve team, with whom he became the youngest player in the club’s history to make his debut, between 1998 and 2004. Despite being liked by Louis van Gaal, he failed to shine as a culé and was transferred successively to Terrassa and Cádiz.