Anambra governor, Obiano
A former national boxer Ikechukwu Okoronkwo on Sunday urged Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State to assist ailing former African heavyweight boxing champion Ngozika Ekwelum.
The aged Ekwelum is reportedly lying ill at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) at Ituku/Ozala in Enugu battling cancer of the bladder.
According to Okoronkwo, the Anambra government should remember the pride gained from the glory the sick ex-boxer brought the country in the 80s, including winning an African title.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ekwelum won the African heavyweight boxing title in 1980.
Okoronkwo, while speaking with NAN in Enugu, said the former boxer needed assistance in view of the high cost of his treatment.
“Ekwelum was a former national champion, a former Anambra state coach and an Anambra son and he has been at the hospital for more than a month now,” he said.
Okoronkwo said it would therefore be unfair for the government and people of Anambra to leave a patriotic boxing coach and former Nigerian champion to be in distress with a curable illness.
He expressed regrets that the hospital’s radiotherapy machine did not help matters in the boxer’s treatment, having developed some fault weeks back.
“Ekwelum and other patients are waiting for the reactivation of UNTH’s radiotherapy machine, which is the machine for treatment of cancer of the bladder.
“But from my observation, the Anambra government seems to have abandoned its own Ngozika Ekwelum to die in the hospital.
“This man contributed so much to the development of the youths and sports in Nigeria in the former Eastern states and Anambra in particular.
“Ngozika Ekwelum has played his part as patriotic personnel and he is now calling on Nigerians and government to come to his aid,” Okoronkwo said.
He observed that this trial time of COVID-19 would have been an opportunity for Anambra’s Gov. Obiano to show the former boxer love.
“It came to me as a surprise that Tony Oli, the Chairman of Anambra State Sports Council, has not mobilised the Anambra Government to come to Ekwelum’s aid.
“I and a few others are now calling on the Anambra government to liaise with Ekwelum’s family so as to rescue him,” he said.
Okoronkwo pointed out that Ekwelum had discovered boxers who represented the country in Africa and beyond, with “Prof Reuben Ibekwe who is now a health worker being one of them.
“Others are Celestine Ezeugwu, who is now an administrator as the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium Manager, and Blaise Ude, a Deputy Director and Chief Coach of Enugu State Ministry of Youths and Sports.
“There are also Innocent Otukwu, who is now in the U.S., George Ibediro, living now in Canada, and my humble self, among several others too many to mention.”(NAN)
