Legendary head coach of Nigeria’s women’s senior national team, the Super Falcons; Ismaila Mabo has passed on according to reports from his family.
Mabo, 80, passed on in the early hours of Monday, 13th March, 2023 after a protracted illness, a family source told the Blueprint Newspapers.
Ismaila Mabo was head coach of the Super Falcons when they won the first ever African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON) on home soil in 1998 with the team scoring twenty-eight (28) goals and conceding none.
Mabo would then lead the team to the quarter finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the USA a year later; the team narrowly bowing out to Brazil during extra-time to the Golden Goal rule. He also led the team
He also remained in charge of the Falcons when they successfully defended their AWCON title in South Africa in 2000, this time the team scored nineteen (19) goals and conceded two (2).
Mansur Salihu Nakande, a sibling to the deceased confirmed the news of Mabo’s demise on Monday morning
“The death of our elder brother, Ismaila Mabo, has occurred in the early hours of this Monday, after a protracted illness,” he was quoted as saying.
Mabo passes on barely five months after his wife Hajiya Lami Mabo died after a brief illness last October.
A funeral prayer will hold (or would have been held depending on the time you’re reading this) for the late Ismaila Mabo on Monday morning at his Jos residence.
