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If
Nigeria’s performance in sports in the last fifty years is reviewed,
boxing will surely rank in the top three of events that have helped
burnish Nigeria’s global image.

At the Olympic
Games, World, Commonwealth and Commonwealth Games, our boxers always
returned with laurels with some of them being in the top ten brackets
of their various weight categories.

These pugilists
kept alive the tradition of the 1950s and early 1960s when Hogan “kid”
Bassey and Dick “Tiger” Ihetu annexed world titles in their different
divisions.

The period from
independence to the early, maybe even the late, 1980s was a period of
ferment for boxing in the country both in the professional and amateur
ranks. Names like Eddie Ndukwu, Obisia Nwankpa, Dele Jonathan, Billy
Famous, Abraham “the Assassin” Tonica, Tony and Davidson Andeh, Peter
Konyegwachie, Christopher Ossai, Jeremiah Okorodudu, Joe Orewa, kept
the professional and amateur ranks bubbling with activity while earning
Nigeria positive reviews internationally.

To sustain the
tempo of activity there were a number of competitions for amateurs
notably the Eagle Belt Championships. At the pro level, our boxers
benefited from the myriad of fights promoted by Nigerian boxing
promoters.

Today, all have
gone kaput. Activity both on the amateur and pro scenes have fizzled
out with the result that our boxers when they manage to attend
international boxing competitions, become cannon fodder for their
opponents. It will be hard to tell the last time Nigeria returned from
a Grade A boxing tournaments with medals.

On the professional
scene, only Samuel Peter has kept Nigeria’s name alive even though he
has not particularly being in his elements in recent times.

Hunger within

Without using
euphemisms, boxing is dead in Nigeria, administratively that is. I
stand to be corrected, but I feel that our decline in boxing has
absolutely nothing to do with a dwindling talent base.

On the contrary,
hunger for the sport has never been stronger among our youth than at
this time. On Friday, while discussing with Paul Bankole, head of the
Directorate of Sports of the Redeemed Christian Church of God about an
amateur boxing tournament to be jointly organised by the Church and the
Office of the Special Assistant to the Governor of Lagos State on
Grassroots Sports development taking place between March 2 and 3, 2011,
I was shocked to discover that there are as many as 54 boxing clubs in
Lagos State. These are the officially recognised ones. There are others
operating at an informal level where youngsters practice their craft
hoping for a breakthrough into the big league. In Ogun State there are
equally many boxing clubs where boxers, male and female, hone their
skills.

Now, isn’t it surprising that our boxing administrators are not attempting to feed this hunger?

They seem to have reached a cul-de-sac in terms of ideas.

During my meeting
with Bankole last Friday a young lady walked into his office with a
middle aged man who was later identified as David Adekunle, a boxing
coach and manager of Achimota Boxing Club based in Lagos.

The lady who looked
smart sporting a tee-shirt over trousers turned out to be Kehinde
Obareh, a boxer who has represented Nigeria at the world championships.
She is also the second ranked boxer in the world in kick boxing. As I
interacted with her I began to feel her pain and frustration as she
told me that despite being one of the first nation to embrace women’s
boxing, Nigeria is lagging behind other nations who just latched onto
the sport because our administrators were not doing their bit.

Indeed, if you
properly assess the situation you will find that many of the
individuals who have administered boxing haven’t the faintest clue what
the sport is about. Our performance at the last Commonwealth Games in
India and its aftermath accurately captures the malaise.

The whole process
from the selection of head coach to the selection of boxers for the
games underscores the rot within the system. One thing that also
emerged from my discussions with Obareh and Adekunle was the fact that
while quality coaches are in short supply in the country, the boxing
federation has somehow managed over the years to alienate even the good
ones.

We need to get back on track. We must get our boxers particularly
the amateurs fighting again. This is one reason why the collaboration
between the Redeemed Christian Church of God and the Lagos State
Government is welcome.