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Olu Moses, who is still actively involved in boxing as a coach at 83, shares his experiences with ADEOLA BALOGUN and OLUFEMI ATOYEBI
At 83, you are still involved in boxing. Why are you not retired?
Boxing is my life. It is difficult to do without it. Besides, age has not affected my passion for the sport and that is why I still train the young ones to become good boxers. The boys I train now are preparing for the 2013 National Sports Festival, which is coming up in Lagos. I want them to be like me. I want them to make progress in the game. I believe that when we have boys and train them right from a youthful age, they will grow up to become champions in life.
Don’t you think that you are straining yourself beyond your natural limit?
I am blessed with good health. I don’t always fall sick and I go for occasional medical check-ups. God has been very good to me. He has kept me strong and provides for me. The only condition that can make me feel uncomfortable with my body is if I wake up and somehow I am unable to jog to the stadium from my house.
Is longevity common in your family?
I think it is just a special gift from God to some people. My father was 73 years old when he died and my mother was already 85 before she departed, too. I am gradually surpassing their age limit.
How did you become a boxer?
It was in 1948. One day I went to a football pitch and I witnessed a group of teenagers with older men who had tried to cheat them. The boys were playing football when the men came and tried to chase them away from the pitch. The teenagers warned them to stop and when the latter refused, a fight broke out. Using boxing skills, the boys beat the men until they bled from the injuries sustained from the fight. They continued with their game, while their opponents ran away. I cherished that moment and I made up my mind to join them. When I asked them where they came from, they said they were members of Yaba Boys Club. The club had produced many great boxers in Nigeria in those days. I approached the secretary the second day and told him that I would be glad if he could include my name in the register. I met the popular and talented boxer, Teddy Odus, at the club. He was one of our trainers at the time.
Do you still recall some members of the club?
As I have earlier said, Teddy Odus was a prominent member of the club. Also, we had Homicide Ilori and many others. I was in secondary school at that time. After closing from school, I would go to the club and resume training until I got a job at Costain West Africa in Lagos.
Did your parents oppose your decision to be a boxer?
My parents loved sports and boxing was popular in those days. Today, parents allow their children to start a career in football because it is lucrative. Perhaps, my parents did not know the extent of my involvement in boxing, which was considered a dangerous sport at the time. I always kept my kits hidden from them. Whenever I felt the need to wash the kits, I did it secretly. When I was working in the stores department of Costain, my manager, who was a white man, didn’t know I was a boxer. But he found out durng a boxing match one Christmas Day. All the boys that were billed to fight that day were asked to invite their bosses to the event. When my manager saw me, he said, ‘Moses, what are you doing here?’ That day, I fought one of the boys from the National Boxing Club in Idi-Oro (Lagos) and won the fight in the third round. I was given many prizes. In those days, amateur boxers did not receive cash prizes. But many of the managers at my workplace said I should see them in their offices the following Monday. I went to see them and they gave me 10 shillings each. That was how I became popular in Costain and my job was secure for the 40 years that I worked there.
What else did you benefit from boxing?
One day, one of the rascals that used to molest people on the railway line between Costain and Surulere tried to harass me and I punched him hard. As we were fighting, some of my colleagues who were passing by cheered me. The fellow ran away and that was the end of harassment on that road. The bush path was full of chestnut trees at that time, but when the National Stadium was built, all the trees were cut down.
How did boxing give you job security at Costain?
We built the boxing ring in 1949. I was one of those who spearheaded the initiative. The company later started a boxing club. Let me say that I am the founder of the club. Some boys from Isheri and Lagos joined us. The club became very popular in Lagos and the boxers trained in the club fought and won medals everywhere in Nigeria. Mr. Olowookere was one of the executive directors of the company, he was an engineer and he really supported us because he loved sport. Then boxing was the top sport and we had one of the best boxing rings in the country at Costain. We won the Lagos State championship for about two years.
Did you contest a national title?
No, I didn’t because I had to go back to school. I stopped fighting after the final of Glover Hall Championship where I had to face the captain of my club. I lost to him in the third round and I got a silver medal. Then I sat for the entrance examination to Yaba Technical School, now Yaba College of Technology. We were the first set to be admitted into the school. I studied carpentry. Later I had to change my course to stenography. I worked in the store at Costain and I stumbled on an advert of the International Correspondence School in an international newspaper. I enrolled in the school to study storekeeping. In 1971, I was awarded a certificate and I got a raise in the office due to my further training at the ICS.
How did you become a boxing coach?
At a time when the Europeans at Costain were going back to their countries, they told me that I should keep the flag of the boxing club flying because they would be looking at the Costain bulletin to see how it was doing after their departure. That was how I took over the management of the club. I attended the first coaching course organised by Hogan Bassey at Railway Recreation ground. Some of the boxers I trained became champions in the amateur and professional categories. Some of them ended up as coaches.
Can you tell us their names?
The first person was Siki Panther. His real name was Sikiru Alimi. He was a very strong boy. He participated in the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964 with Nojeem Maiyegun. Maiyegun won a bronze medal, while Panther lost in the quarterfinals. Then, there was Jerome Korede, who represented Nigeria in a competition in Zambia, where he won a bronze medal. In the professional category, I had Cyprian Emmeti. He won the national title in Nigeria and we went to Ghana to fight for the African title and beat his opponent in the fifth round. There was Jose Napole, who is in Italy now. He was a national champion in Nigeria before he left and I have not heard from him. Kehinde Balogun was another national champion. Then there was Jude Agu, who was a cruiserweight champion before he travelled out of Nigeria. After that, there was Bartholomew, who we called the Animal. He was a heavyweight champion in Nigeria for many years before he left for South Africa. Also, I trained Ray Adio, who was a lightweight champion for many years. In fact, the Costain Boxing Club produced many good boxers. It is sad that the club died after many years.
Having trained many champion boxers, would you say that you have been duly recognised for your efforts in Nigeria?
I have only been recognised by Lagos State where I became a ring judge. At one point, I was involved in almost every boxing event in the country. Today, I am the oldest boxing official in the state.
Are you paid to train these boys here?
Ever since I left Costain, I have not had any paid employment.
How do you assess boxing in Nigeria?
Boxing died because of lack of support. In the past, things were different. Expatriates supported boxing in those days, while the government did nothing for the sport. I remember that UAC brought in a lot of materials and employed many of our boys. Without promoters, boxing cannot grow.
Did you interact with Hogan Bassey when he was alive?
Of course, he knew me quite well. We grew up from Yaba Boys Club before he left for the United Kingdom in the late 1950s. Nobody knew that he would become a world champion some day, but he was always fearless in the ring. By the time he moved to England, he was said to be faster than boxers who grew up in the UK. He was a short man, but he was very determined and quick to respond to punches.
Nowadays everybody wants to play football because of the big money in it. In your time, what motivated boxers in their chosen career?
It was not money. In those days, boxing was more popular than any other sport. Why would anyone leave boxing and go into football in those days? Football thrived only at the school level, while boxing clubs flourished in Lagos. The achievements of people like Hogan Bassey helped to make the sport very popular in Nigeria. So did Dick Tiger, Segun Ajose and so on. When I heard about the death of the former President of the Nigeria Boxing Board of Control, Laide Adeboye, I knew boxing in Nigeria would suffer. Ajose knew everybody that mattered. He was the man behind Samuel Peter’s rise in boxing. He had the means and the time to attend all the boxing conferences and he was at the ring side when Peter fought. If he was still alive, a man like Segun Ajose would have become a world champion because he beat the last man in Las Vegas. Adeboye would have arranged another person to fight Ajose when the title holder refused to face him. That is the tragedy of the sport, when the man who knows more about something is not there, the game suffers.
Have you ever been injured as a boxer?
Yes, I was injured in the eye once. By then, if you wanted to go into real boxing, no manager would take you if your cheekbones were too smooth; they must shoot out due to continuous punching. There was no protective head gear then and when you wanted to punch, you punched the face. Before we knew anything about protective gears, it took some time. The lips were taking the punishment and they were broken many times. Many materials for boxing were out of the reach before we began to advance. People who had the knowledge, particularly the Europeans, brought in the materials later. My knuckles were rough until recently when they became smooth. We used gloves then, but they barely covered the hands, unlike the ones that are being used today.
At what point did you begin to think of making money as a boxer?
One thing is that I didn’t do it professionally. Some of the boys that I trained occasionally gave me money after they became champions. But my joy then really was to see them win, even after they might have left me. Some of them would bring drinks and ask me to pray for them.
In what other way has boxing positively impacted on your life?
Boxing taught me self discipline and I owe my good health to the sport. Boxing will teach you to be disciplined when it comes to social activities. You must not drink, smoke or be a womaniser. Girls were all over me because of my popularity, but I knew where I came from. So I didn’t get involved in relationship until I was ready to get married.
When did you start raising a family?
It took me a very long time settle down because I am the kind of person that will not stop something until I see it to the end. At the age of 35, I decided to get married after I was convinced that I would able to cater for a family.
Was the woman you eventually married a boxing fan?
Initially, she didn’t know that I was a boxer. When she eventually found out, she wanted to back out. She was afraid that a boxer would be beating her. One thing that people don’t know is that boxers are the most tolerant people in the world. As a boxer, you are not expected to be seen fighting anywhere. When she was apprehensive, she was persuaded that nothing would happen to her, that boxers were not the dredge of the society. So she calmed down. I thank God that we lived a beautiful family life. No matter what, there is nothing you do to me that will make me angry. Women will be women any day. Except a few times we had disagreement, we never quarrelled. In fact, I never beat her because I understand her perfectly. Because I love the European life, when I tell my wife to sit down here until I come back, she will obey me and remain on that seat. That was how I trained her. That is how we are living as husband and wife. She never gave me any problem and thank God, we are Christians.
Where is your wife now?
She is not that healthy now and she is staying with one of our children. But we are still one.
Did any of your children show interest in boxing?
None of them did. But they are all doing well. My first son would have loved to take after me. But as a young man, he got injured in the eye when one of his school mates threw a stone at him. The injury was treated, but I knew that if he got involved in boxing with such an injured eye, his opponent would capitalise on it and target the spot. That could be dangerous.
When will you retire from boxing?
v I will continue to train young men until I can no longer do so. I won’t say I am old because everyone knows that if I stay at home now, I may fall sick. If any of my children feels that I should stay back at home, he or she must be ready to find me something else to do that will take my time. I know that by doing exercises, I have remained very healthy. I wake up every morning by 5 o’clock, take my bath and set out on road work. I will stop when God says it is time for me to stop.
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Source : punchng[dot]com
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