The youngest member of the Super Eagles team that won Nigeria’s first African Cup of Nations, Henry Nwosu is dead, reports thegazellenews.com
News of Nwosu’s death was broken by the Vice Captain of that iconic side, Segun Odegbami on his Facebook page on Saturday, 14 March, 2026.
Thegazellenews.com reports that Nwosu died at the age of 63.
According to Odegbami, Nwosu died after spending five days at the Intensive Care Unit of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.
“After 5 days in hospital battling for his life, the one I call ‘Youngest Millionaire’ passed on at 4:00 am this morning at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos where he had been in Intensive Care since Wednesday.
“It is with deep pain in my heart that I have to be the conveyor of the news of the death of Henry Nwosu MON, the youngest of the victorious 1980 AFCON squad.
“May he rest peacefully with our Creator in Heaven,” Segun Odegbami wrote on his Facebook.
Nwosu was an iconic figure in Nigerian football making history as the first secondary school student to play for the national team.
As a member of then Green Eagles that won Nigeria’s first AFCON, Nwosu was still a student of the famous St Finbarrs College, Akoka, Yaba.
He was the leader of the New Nigerian Bank Football Club of Benin which dominated Nigerian football in the mid-80s.
Apart from the AFCON 80 winning side, Nwosu was also a member of the Super Eagles that won Silver medals at Abidjan in 1984 and Rabat in 1988.
