"Dalung should forget Anthony Joshua and face Nigeria’s hungry boxers"

Former world boxing light and welterweight contender, Obisia Nwankpa, has lambasted the Nigerian government and Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung for giving attention to Boxing champion, Anthony Joshua.


The former African and Commonwealth champion and now amateur boxing coach, was reacting to Joshua’s victory against Carlos Takam.

He condemned the attitude of government officials, lamenting how Dalung led a delegation to Scotland to watch Joshua beat his opponent.

Obisia insisted that Nigeria boxers can be bigger if government pay more attention to them.

He said: “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.

“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. 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”.