Bash Ali’s Guinness World Record Bout: Delay Is Dangerous, Sports Group Warns FG, Sunday Dare

A sports group, Sports Promotion and Development Association of Nigeria (SPADAN), has warned the Federal Government of Nigeria to expedite action on the wishes of World Boxing Federation (WBF) cruiserweight champion, Bashiru Lawrence Ali (OON) to have the Guinness World Record Boxing Championship staged in the country and bring honour to the Government and the good people of Nigeria.

Ali, who is popularly called Bash Ali, has been in the long running battle to stage the boxing championship in Nigeria in the past years. The record breaking tournament is expected to put the name of the Nigerian boxer in the Guinness Book of World Record as the oldest boxer to step on the boxing ring, while if he wins the bout, it would also confine on the Nigerian the honour as the oldest boxer to win a world title fight. A double honour for Bash Ali and the country in a single night.

Rising from an emergency meeting held in Akure, Ondo State capital on Friday, the National Council of SPADAN called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that the honour and all the benefits the staging of the Guinness World Record Boxing Championship will bring to Nigeria happen during his reign as the president, adding that the Ministry of Sports under the leadership of Sunday Dare has shown that it lacks the prerequisites to midwife the hosting of the epic fight despite being the custodian of sports in the country.

SPADAN, who is planning to organise an inter geo-political zone sports competition in Nigeria in 2022, said it frown at the attitude of officials of the government to the fight; an attitude which the sports group described as unpatriotic to the nation.

President of Sports Promotion and Development Association of Nigeria, Otunba Babatunde Adegunloye told P.M. EXPRESS in Akure that President Buhari will be written his name in gold if the fight is held in Nigeria during his tenure in office.

“We are telling the government that delay is dangerous. Bash Ali has been on this fight for a very long time. We must commend the boxer for the patience and endurance and more importantly, the patriotic spirit in him that made him to insist that the fight must be  staged in Nigeria.

“We are surprised with the excuse coming out from the Ministry of Sports and we are disappointed in the Minister of Sports, Sunday Dare who we see as a political opportunist that finds himself in the office and now using that office to work against the interest of the nation; a position he cannot hold for a lifetime.

“The Government of Nigeria and its officials still have the chance to do the needful because we believe that if it is in another climes, Bash Ali would have long held this fight and hold several defenses between then and now,” Adegunloye said.