When Anthony Joshua showed his commendable Yoruba home training of genuflecting to elders when he visited Muhammadu Buhari, I was among those who felt this gesture was highly misplaced. As the heavyweight champion that he is, I immediately thought about the greatest boxer of all time Mohammed Ali and if he would be prostrating to an evil and unreasonable ruler like Buhari. From that day onwards, I started questioning the intelligence of one of Nigeria’s great exports to the world via the United Kingdom. I often acknowledge the intelligence and inspiration in his motivational quotes and video. I am impressed with the luxury brands that have endorsed his brand like the luxury car manufacturer Range Rover among others. I am also impressed with his good looks, which is good enough for a career in the movies or modeling. In all departments except the indiscretion of visiting and prostrating to the worst president in the history of Nigeria. A former coup plotter and terrorist sympathizer who has presided over an era of wholesale stealing through foreign loans, unprecedented killings and kidnapping, electoral fraud and so much more. Aside from this anomaly of not seeing Buhari for the damage he has and continues to do, Anthony Joshua is worthy of our continued support.

Every day many Nigerians like Hushpupi, El Rufai, Fani Kayode, Malami, and other key players in Buhari’s government enter the trending news for the wrong reasons, but Anthony Joshua has for about a decade placed Nigeria on the map and news for all the good reasons. On Wikipedia, Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua, OBE, who was born on 15 October 1989, is regarded as a British professional boxer. He is credited as a two-time former unified world heavyweight champion, having held the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO titles from December 2019 to September 2021, and previously between 2016 and June 2019. At the regional level, he held the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles from 2015 to 2016. As an amateur, Joshua represented England at the 2011 World Championships in the super-heavyweight division, winning a silver medal. He also represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics, winning gold making England and Nigeria proud. In 2014, a year after turning professional, he was named Prospect of the Year by The Ring magazine. In 2017, his victorious fight against Wladimir Klitschko was named Fight of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America.

With the recent defeat that can be regarded as an upset big enough to be compared to the upset that Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyson suffered in their illustrious career, we as Nigerians must stand in support of our professional sportsman who is plying his trade at the highest level and has made us proud on numerous occasions. I would say without mincing words that Anthony Joshua is a sports role model that has and will continue to inspire the teeming Nigerian youths that urgently need mentors and role models. Other sporting greats have suffered similar humiliation at some point in their career but the thing that separates greats and ordinary performers are their ability to persistently return from a place of defeat. Many are saying Anthony Joshua is not strong enough, that he is a poster child and does not fit the bill of who should have the crown of undisputed heavyweight champion, my answer is that similar statements can be made about Mohammed Ali. Defeat can be a very good teacher if we are humble and ready to learn from the lessons that defeat presents. I wish Anthony Joshua a fast return to winning ways.

Ata Ukuta, Editor – www.towncryyers.com