NBF Scores again With National Open Boxing Championship As Ogun Boxers Dominate In Kaduna 

IKPO IGBINOBA 

At inauguration in October, the new board of the Nigeria Boxing Federation, NBF under the leadership of rtd. Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah gave its word; to reenact Nigeria’s golden era in the sport.

And with barely six months after its inauguration, the federation seems firmly on course to achieving its set target.  

After the board meeting in Abuja last December, where committees were set up and a blueprint unveiled, the federation hit the ground running.

The first challenge for the federation was introducing boxing to the university community which was preparing for the NUGA Games.

During the inaugural board meeting, the President of the federation, Gen. Minimah appointed Babatunde Laguda, a member of the Technical Committee as the Coordinator of the NUGA Games project.

After several unsuccessful attempts in the past to convince the NUGA to adopt boxing in its schedule, the new NBF board prepared a more convincing presentation.

This time round, the NUGA accepted the NBF presentation and agreed to have boxing as a demonstration sport.

On its part, the federation put up a command performance during the boxing event at the University of Lagos venue of the NUGA Games. 

Boxing featured on March 21st and 22nd at the Jelili Omotola Multipurpose Hall.

Though it featured as a demonstration sport, boxing turned out to be one of the biggest crowd pullers during the Games.  

From organisation to officiating and safety of the boxers, boxing satisfied all the criteria required to achieve the status of a scoring event.

In other words, boxing will feature in the 2024 NUGA Games billed for the University of Jos as a scoring event.

While stakeholders were still basking in the euphoria of the NUGA Games success,  the NBF train headed for Kaduna.

From March 23rd -30th, boxers from all over the country representing states and clubs congregated in the northern city to box in the National Men and Women(Open) Boxing Championships.

The major objective of the Kaduna event was to discover new talents that would replenish the ageing stock of boxers.

After seven days of boxing which projected Kaduna in positive light rather than a place contending with security challenges, the major objective was achieved.

Mr. Laguda who was in Kaduna for the championship said it was a huge success. 

According to him “The Kaduna event was a huge success. Apart from engaging the boxers who need regular championships to be in-form, Kaduna also exposed a lot of talents”.

“In fact, with what I saw in Kaduna, the new talents discovered are not only going to take over from the ageing boxers, they will do well on the big stage”.

With the journey so far, boxing stakeholders have every reason to hope that their favourite sport is on its way to  its glorious past under the focused and dynamic leadership of Gen. Minimah.

Ogun State topped the medals table in Kaduna with seven gold medals and five bronze.