By Trigo Egbegi
A concerned fan of professional boxing in Nigeria confronted me last week on phone, demanding to know just what the sin of the Nigerian Boxing Board of Control is, for which Yours Truly has persistently chosen to deny it peace all these many years past.

Judging by the tone of the content of his query, it is very clear my caller knows me much deeper than I know him. The entreaty was not without mention of the infamous face-off that engulfed the House some six years back and which may have served as launching pad for the litigation fad we see in the nation’s sports spectrum. That was the father of all litigation.

The loaded query was concluded with reference to the NBB of C as a certified saint, placed alongside the nation’s football fed in the face of recent revelations emanating from the embattled Glass House in Abuja.

I never had the chance to react as my caller switched off (with a sharp sigh) before I could do so.
Thank the Good Heavens! There couldn’t have been a better time to react to the sneak weekend attack than I’m about doing here; in my moment of concentration and love when I’m not reacting to the spur of a testing moment.

You see, I love boxing. I so much so love the sport that I’m in love with it and all it stands for. Such is the love that I have made sacrifices over the years that have been a peril to my well being. Truth is, I can’t say the same for and about the NBB of C. Certainly, not the blind confused majority constituting the 61year-old board who claim they love the sport, too.

How can the Board claim to be in love when it is not committed to the cause of pro-boxing, and making it become a truly meaningful career venture youths can be encouraged to take up? Or, even rise up to the aid of and in defense of a sport in its moments of crisis and hopelessness?

As direct answer to my interrogator’s main question, I’m making it abundantly clear here that my grouse about the Board is predicated less by any sins committed, than by the wide range of sins not committed. Simply put, the sin of inaction.

Just in case you have been overlooking it. Inaction is about the greatest sin in our world. It is tantamount sheer waste of precious talent given by the master in the bible, which the servants are expected to invest and profit thereof.

Nigeria’s boxing establishment is likened to the biblical passive servant who chose, instead, to bury his own talent in the ground than incur the wrath of the master in the event of failure.

In the context of the state of our nation’s sports the House of boxing is a far bigger culprit than the Abuja Glass House currently facing serious indictment. Unlike the former, the Nigeria Football Federation crashed, trying.

In every conceivable sense, football hasn’t been the failure that the boxing sport is today. If, indeed, it has sinned, that is the transgression of the NFF for its inability to manage the monstrous success that has come through industry of the House.

Many are they in the House of boxing who have openly expressed unease with my perpetual crusade to reposition the sport. These are the ones who insist the sport must be run only marginally different from the way it operated in the 18th Century. For instance, these persons insist that boxing is not worth operating from a respectable office secretariat.

There are, of course, others to whom – despite misgivings – the essence of this crusade is not totally lost, after all. These are the few who are convinced there is, indeed, the need for deep re-examination of the House by way of distinguishing between the desirable and undesirable trends inherent, as the first step towards saving pro boxing.

These are the concerned ones who share my view that a cleansing is expedient in the House, by way of limiting membership strictly to productive, progressive minds, as opposed to the existing free-for-all structure. In this way can Board expunge the slug presently characterizing the sport, and create a marketable new-look commodity worthy of presentation to the corporate establishment, the media and public.

Under this suggested dispensation, pro boxing in Nigeria would be better off without representative fronts of managers and promoters serving in the Board and giving birth to all sorts of problems to set the sport back.

Pro boxing would be better off without promoters who are allowed to subject boxers to financial contracts that are not redeemed.

Pro boxing would be better off without self appointed managers who do not command the means to carry out obligations to their wards, but rather, depend on such helpless, innocent preys to augment their own source of sustenance.

Pro boxing would be better off without a board which subscribes to the philosophy that a boxer is not worthy of earning a purse that can put food on the table for his family.
Revisiting Amos Adamu. Pro boxing would be better off without courtship with a man who claims he is in love with the sport. Here is letting Nigerians know that at no time – past or present – has Dr. Adamu been a friend or sympathizer of the sport of boxing. Even at the climax of his tenure in the corridors of power, the many-time Director General of the Federal Ministry of Sports had his flirtation restricted to the more lucrative football terrain.

Despite entreaties – though feeble – from friends and acquaintances in the NBB of C, Amos never relented on his unspoken vow never to touch this sport many have labeled a dangerous adder. Not even with a 50-foot pole.