. Obisia, Ekpo cry out

 Omo-Agege blames sports ministry 

BY AYOMIDE JAYEOBA

Benjamin Franklin, a former Governor of Pennsylvania State in the United State in his words said “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning,” surely, he must have known that a time like this will come when the sport that first put Nigeria on the world map will be on the course of a free fall.

The recent poor performance of Nigerian boxers on the world stage which limited the country to producing just one pugilist, Efe Ajagba for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games after several others were denied qualification during the qualifying stage in Cameroon, and the near extinction of quality pugilists in Nigeria have necessitated the need to beam a searchlight on the pathetic state of boxing in Nigeria.

Long before football took the centre stage, boxing brought glory to Nigeria by producing boxing legends who till date ranked among the best around the world.

Great boxers like Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey, Dick Tiger, Obisia Nwakpa as well as Samuel Peters have all at one time or the other, shown the boxing world that the most populous black nation can equally compete with the best of the best.

In the recent past, boxing in Nigeria is gradually heading into the state of oblivion save for the revival of the Gotv Boxing Night.

Isaac Ekpo, a soldier with the Nigerian Army and former Commonwealth Super Middleweight champion attributed the declining state of Nigerian boxing to the lack of seriousness and support given to the game by the boxing governing body in the country.

“Lack of seriousness on the part of the officials is killing boxing in Nigeria. There is also the issue of lack of preparation too. The major problem of sports in Nigeria is that the administrative aspect of the game is being handled by the wrong hands.”

The 2003 All African Games Light Heavyweight silver medallist however envisaged a turn-around in the fortunes of Nigerian boxing if round pegs are put in the round holes. “The right people should be put at the helms of administrating the sport if Nigeria is to reclaim her boxing glory. You can’t put a mechanic in a carpentry workshop and expect result. People who have played the game and are experienced should be put at the helms of sports and not just any person.

“I am very optimistic and I believe in few days time boxing will come back to its glorious days in the country and Nigeria will be greater than America in boxing because experts are willing to come back into the game.”

Similarly, former Nigeria national boxing coach, Obisia Nwakpa disclosed that lack of support and motivation for boxing in Nigeria is reason why most boxers in Nigeria move abroad for greener pastures.

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Nwakpa, a former Commonwealth Ligh Welterweight Champion upset by the lack of attention for boxing in the country submitted that: “Most of our boxers tend to find solace going outside the country for greener pastures because of lack of support given to the game here, and the country loses out as a result.”

He further revealed that in the past, funds never determined the success level of sports in the country, stressing that the problem remains an administrative one.

In a contrasting reaction, a source from the Nigeria Boxing Federation (NBF) who is also a board member of the boxing governing body in the country, Azania Omo-Agege in a chat with Weekend Sun Sports  differed from the reports claiming that the Federation is responsible for the decline of the roped-square-sport noting that the Nigeria Boxing Federation under the leadership of Gen. Kenneth Minimah has done a lot to develop and restore the lost glory of boxing in Nigeria.

“The board is very competent and you can see that in our effort to ensure boxing comes back to life in Nigeria. It’s just that we need to get our hearts together, we have good and talented boxers but the problem is the lack of funding from the Sports Ministry.

“I won’t sit down here and tell you that everything is smooth because the money is not forth-coming as it used to be and that is why we are not progressing the way we are supposed to. We need to encourage the boxers and money is the vital resource needed to encourage these boxers, you can see them there very happy and that shows that the Federation is doing everything possible to support them. The Ministry is stunting the growth of boxing, anytime we are going for competitions we are always battling with inadequate funding from the Sports Ministry.

“We were only able to produced just one pugilist for the Rio 2016 Olympics because of lack of funding that affected our trials and qualifiers for the Olympic in Cameroon.” On plans to initiate a boxing league, the Warri-born boxing promoter therefore disclosed plans mapped out by the Nigeria Boxing Federation (NBF) to further develop and encourage talented boxers to come into the ring which is to initiating the boxing league which will consist of ten teams in ten different categories.

The boxing league will be staged in every two weeks in each state of the federation and is expected to commence by the first quarter of 2017.

“We are currently working on developing our boxers and to encourage talented boxers out there to come into the game. We don’t want them to be idle as presently, there is no competition. To do this, we are trying to come up with our own boxing league which will hopefully start in the next few months.

\This competition will be staged every two weeks in each state of the federation and we are planning to have about ten teams each in ten different categories in the league just like the football league.

“But without funding all these plans will just die a natural death. It is sad that too much concentration is given to football which is not given us anything. If the government can spend just 2% of money spent on football on boxing, I can assure you we will progress.

“Football with over eleven players on the field of play brought only one medal from the Rio Olympics. So imagine if money spent on each football players is spent on our boxers, no doubt they would have won more medals.

“If we keep living in denial, we won’t progress. Boxing needs to be funded adequately. These boxers have tried for this country and they also need their country to do something for them in return too” he stated.