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.

Source:https://joeezeblog..com.ng/2017/11/forget-joshua-face-our-hungry-boxers.html?m=1

He made a lot of sense but some ppl will come hear and tag it jealousy/bitterness. I mean I like AJ and he has been an inspiration bt the sports ministry giving him more attention than the ones back home who actually represent the country isn't very welcoming.

Jomezy saw this

This is true, see how they rubbish Basa Ali

na so na so in 2baba voice

Why Dalung hasn't yet been axed from his job is still one of the biggest mysteries of the Buhari administration.

They just went to disgrace themselves there,AJ is not representating nigeria,he is fighting for britain.

Yea,this stupid man he hasn't done anything reasonable in his aspect ,all what he does is try to claim all glory to himself for what he has no addition to....
he just wait for patriotic Nigerians to perform well.and "bwammm"he is there to pretend asif he responsible. idiot boyscout man

Hmmmmmm

Ijebu alare.

Ijebu/remo people always making yorubas proud.

Obafemi awolowo readily comes to mind.

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.

The guy was right.

The state of sport facilities and sponsorship are bad in nigeria.

Its almost impossible to get a boxing world champion sprout up from here in nigeria.

The Oriki of the Ijebu


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVuGfIhbFYk

The surreptitious minster wants to add AJ success to his CV