Our last discussion with Izu Joseph was on death – Shooting Stars teammate

A colleague of late Shooting Stars Sports defender, Izu Joseph, who was killed on Sunday, reportedly by a stray bullet from a member of the Joint Task Force, JTF, has said Joseph’s death came to him as a shock as his last discussion with him was about death.


The colleague and the club defender, Osawe Alaba, wept bitterly as he spoke with New Telegraph, even as he urged the management of Shooting Stars Football Club and the Oyo State Football Association to immortalise the player.

Alaba described his late colleague as one of the best defender in the country saying, “He was more than a teammate to me, I played alongside him many times during the season and I can attest to his on and off field attitude.

“Our last discussion at the end of the season was about money and death.

“We were busy discussing how we were going to get the money owed us by the team, not knowing that Joseph’s end was near.

“He was saying that are we going to wait till we die before they pay us all our outstanding salaries and match bonuses.

“Immediately I heard about his death, I couldn’t but recollect our discussion, something that made me cry more.

“I don’t know what the management of Shooting Stars Football Club and the Oyo State Football Association are planning, but sponsoring the education of his eight-year-old daughter won’t be a bad idea at all. He worked for the club and they are still owing him, so it won’t be a bad idea to take over the education of the child among other things.”

The deceased joined 3SC in the 2013/14 season from Bayelsa United and had just completed his third season at the Oluyole Warriors.

Recall that Joseph, a regular with Shooting Stars Sports Club in the just –ended Nigeria Professional Football League season, and who helped the Oluyole Warriors retain their premiership status, was shot dead by military officials in his hometown, Okaki in Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The Nigerian Army had come out to say Joseph was killed in a cultist’s shrine, hence, it would investigate what he was doing at the cultist’s shrine at that time.