Forget Joshua, Face Our Hungry Boxers, Obisia Tells Dalung

By Ben Efe
Former world boxing light and
welterweight contender, Obisia Nwankpa
has decried the state of boxing in the
country, saying that Nigeria will
continue to stumble in international
meets, unless urgent steps are taken to
redress the state of the sport.
The former African and Commonwealth
champion and now amateur boxing
coach, was speaking against the
background of the recent Anthony
Joshua’s fight against Carlos Takam and
the attendant hoopla by Nigerian
government and sports officials,
particularly the Sports Minister,
Solomon Dalung who led a delegation to
Scotland to watch Joshua beat his
opponent.
During the week, Obiasia who was
sweating it out with his wards at the
dilapidated boxing gym of the National
Stadium Lagos was not amused. It was
in the same gym Joshua cut his boxing
teeth before traveling to England to be
rediscovered and nurtured to winning a
gold at the 2012 Olympics Games in
London.
“Dalung and others should forget about
Anthony Joshua, he is well taken care of
by Britain. Our boxers back home are
hungry!
“Our sports officials should come home
and see the state of our boxing. It is as
good as dead and we need to get it back
to the way it was.
“In the past we used to have about five
national competitions with the Eagle belt
championship as the finale. But there is
nothing like that anymore.
“Look at the boxing gym and ring we are
training on, it is all in tatters, the money
they used to travel to cheer Joshua will
go a long way in fixing it.”
Obisia argued that Nigeria will fail to
make any impact at the fort coming
Commonwealth Games in Australia since
the country was not preparing
adequately even as they are relying on
aging boxers.
“We are not preparing for the
Commonwealth Games. To make
matters worse the boxers we have in
camp are too old. How can you take a
37 year old boxer to meet well prepared
opponents from other countries, we are
doomed to fail.
“We have just another three years to the
Olympics in 2020 where we only have
four boys and four girls for each
country.
“There is nothing on ground to suggest
that we are grooming boxers to vie for
the qualifications. We need to start
something now if we are to get our
bearings right for the Games,” Obisia
stated.