Former Super Falcons player Iyabo Abade, now living as a man named James Johnson, has appealed to the Nigeria Football Federation for N69.7 million to fund a corrective surgery that would allow him to father children. Johnson, who is a confirmed hermaphrodite, played for the Falcons from 1997 to 2000. He underwent a successful sex change operation in the United States in 2004, facilitated by then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, following multiple unsuccessful attempts to correct the abnormality which led to his exclusion from the women’s national team.
An intersex person is someone born with variations in sex characteristics that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female.
Johnson said he had reached out to the NFF for financial aid last year to fund his surgery, but he has yet to receive any response from the organization. The 40-year-old expressed that achieving the last steps of the surgery and having children would bring him great satisfaction.
“Anytime I think that I can’t father a child’ yet, I feel broken, that’s why I wrote to the federation for financial assistance. The NFF president Ibrahim Gusau is a man with a listening ear and hopefully, through him, the federation can help me achieve my dream,” Johnson said.
The letter dated April 4, 2023, read, “My President, I am using this medium to passionately appeal to you for God and humanity sake, to use your good office to assist me financially to enable me travel to the United State of America where I did the 1 & 2 phase of surgery (Midway Hospital Medical Centre, Los Angeles) for the surgery and treatment of the 3rd and 4th phase of my transformation to a full fledge man so that I can father children.
“The total cost of the surgery and treatment is one hundred and sixty thousand dollars ($160,000) equivalent to sixty nine million seven hundred and fifty thousand naira (N69,750,000:00).”
The letter to Gusau stated that the writer was born with both male and female organs and was raised as a female. Despite excelling in football and being selected to play for the Super Falcons in 1997, a subsequent test revealed they were a hermaphrodite, with 70% male and 30% female traits, leading to the termination of their appointment as a female player.
The Nigeria Football Association (NFA) then mandated corrective surgery, sponsored by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai in 2004, in the United States. Following two phases of surgery, they were invited to join the Flying Eagles in 2005 but were dropped due to being overage.
Subsequently, they joined NEPA Football Club of Abuja, then Plateau United of Jos, and later Crown Football Club of Ogbomoso in Oyo State, where they faced discrimination and humiliation.
