PETERS BLOW
Ex-boxer Ayodele Peters represented Nigeria at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. But 34 years after, he lives in an uncompleted building in Ayobo, Lagos, reports ‘TANA AIYEJINA
I am dying every day and the Lord knows it. It’s a big shame. It’s just that I cannot commit suicide because I know that there is God and He has preserved me for the past 20 years. I am over 57, but look at how I am now, after representing Nigeria and Ogun State as a boxer,” Olympian Ayodele Peters told our correspondent inside his room at Ayobo, on the outskirts of Lagos.
“I am alive but I am not living. I spent all my fruitful years boxing. I never looked at girls. I was always happy to represent Nigeria.”
Indeed, who would believe that this was the same man, who was decorated with an Olympic pin and a letter from the then International Olympic Committee president, Antonio Samaranch, when the Games clocked 100 years in 1996?
In those days, he walked tall and was seen as a model for the country’s young boxers. But today, Peters is a complete shadow of himself.
Now he lives in an uncompleted building in Ayobo, a suburb of Lagos. Peters covered the windows of his room with old and worn blinds. A rope, which serves as a makeshift wardrobe, runs from one end of the room to the window. Peters’ clothes are hung on it.
On the bare floor lies a new mattress, beside a stove and kitchen utensils. In front of the mattress is Peters’ table, a four-legged iron with a piece of wood placed on it. That is all he can lay claim to as his own, 34 years after he represented Nigeria at the 1980 Olympic Games.
The ceiling is riddled with holes, which evidently means that the ex-boxer must take several positions in the small room whenever it rains, to avoid getting wet.
Spotting a pair of weather-beaten baggy jeans trousers, an oversized shirt and eyeglasses, Peters related his pathetic hero-to-zero story.
“I’ve been living here since 2007. I took Alimosho LGA to the 2007 Lagos Sports Month and I won laurels. I used the money I realised from the competition to rent this place. I may soon be homeless because the owner has said he wants to complete the building and pack in,” Peters told our correspondent.
Once a driver to the late Afrobeat king, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, in the 1970s, Peters’ life witnessed a twist of fate, when the musician sent him to Abeokuta to help drive his mother, Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.
But it didn’t take long before the young Peters abandoned driving for boxing and within four years, he was competing at the highest stage for sportsmen and women: the Olympic Games.
He said, “I heard about a job in the Ogun State Sports Council and after an interview, I was offered employment in 1976. I took the letter to Fela because he sent me to Abeokuta and he said, ‘Fine.’ Fela loved boxing; he paid my wages and everyone inside Kalakuta had a job. He treated me very well but I loved boxing.
“By 1979, I made the national boxing team, courtesy of my performance at that year’s National Sports Festival in Oyo State. I fought Davidson Andeh in the final of the light welter weight category and I had a cut in the first round. I cried because I wanted to box against him. No boxer lasted a round against him.
“Some of the boxers who fought him even had to be carried away from the ring. But I vowed to walk into the ring and out with my legs. It was a tough fight.
“In 1980, we were invited for Olympic trials and I stopped all my opponents. Few months later, we went on a tour of Europe, where I did well too. Several months later, I was chosen to represent the country at the 22nd Games of the Olympiad in Moscow, where I lost in the quarterfinal.”
But Peters revealed that the perennial maladministration that has marred sports development in the country, reared its ugly head in Moscow.
“Everyone saw what happened to our footballers at the 2014 World Cup. It also happened in our time. Do you know that I boxed for Nigeria at the Olympics with borrowed pants? We came back from the Olympics with a sex scandal. I attended a probe set up by the Federal Government; they said boxers planned to lose.”
But a year later, after representing Nigeria at the European Championships in Bucharest, Romania, Peters said he realised that his employers, the Ogun State Sports Council, were not concerned about his welfare, despite helping to put the state on the world map.
While in Team Ogun’s camp ahead of the Bendel ‘81 National Sports Festival, he was head-butted above the left eye during a sparring session. Doctors advised him to quit boxing or risk a serious damage to his sight, because of the severity of the injury.
Peters claimed the sports council left him to his fate, but called him up to represent Ogun at the 2nd P&T Sports Festival in Kaduna, where he won gold.
In 1985, while representing Ogun at the National Boxing Championship in Lagos, Peters said he sustained a thumb injury in his second fight. Though he managed to reach the final — his fifth fight — Peters described the injury as one that ‘tops a series of personal disasters that plagued my life and career.’
Indeed, it finally led to his double dismissal — first in 1987 and then in 1994 — as a staff of the sports council and from there, his problems, which ultimately reduced him to his present status.
After applying several medications to the injury to no avail, a physiotherapist advised him to seek treatment in the United Kingdom in 1986.
With the aid of an uncle, he embarked on a trip to London for treatment, first at the Brook Hospital, before he was admitted into Blackheath Hospital.
But despite documents (which were made available to our correspondent) to show that his trip was approved by Dr. Ayodele Oni, the state consultant at the time, he was dismissed for embarking on what he termed ‘French Leave.’
Peters said, “I was in Lagos defending my national championship title, when in my second fight I had a torn ligament. My physiotherapist said I should go to Britain for treatment. But the sports council abandoned me. An uncle helped me and took me to London for treatment. I was in a plaster cast for three months.
“After I got an approval from Dr. Oni, I was tricked into travelling to London without an official letter of release in my hand, as civil service protocol demands.
“The doctor and consultant gave me all the necessary papers to show (to the sports council) the manner of injury and even the x-ray. But on my arrival in September 1987, I was told that I took French Leave and was instructed verbally not to report for duty without an official letter issued to that effect. I kept going to the office, demanding justice. In February 1988, I was given a letter of dismissal with retrogressive effect from January 1987.”
But Peters still competed for Ogun at the 1989 NSF in Lagos and won a medal for the state. The then military administrator of Ogun State, Navy Captain Mohammed Lawal, ordered automatic promotion to the next salary grade level for medalists at the festival, who were employees of the sports council; and employment for unemployed medalists.
About a year later, he felt relieved when he was offered a fresh appointment on Grade Level 07. Having been promoted to Grade Level 07 in 1986, Peters pleaded for double promotion from level 07 to 09, claiming that he should have been part of the general promotion exercise in 1991 for civil servants who were last promoted in 1986; and as a beneficiary of the promise of Lawal after winning a medal at Eko ‘89.
But a letter dated October 11, 1991 and signed by I.O. Adebayo for State Commissioner, Ministry of Social Development, Youth and Sports read, “Since the appointment offered you (in 1990) is a fresh appointment, it is not possible to backdate it to November 8, 1976 (when Peters was first employed). You are therefore advised to face your work…”
There was more drama to come. Peters was first served a compulsory letter of retirement, signed by B.A. Oyeti, for State Commissioner, Ministry of Information, Social Development, Youth and Sports on September 26, 1994.
But another letter dated December 14, 1994 titled Re: Retirement from Service and also signed by Oyeti, instead turned his retirement to outright dismissal from the state civil service.
The letter read, “I am directed to refer to our letter No. SCI/SP./Vol. VIII/T/322 on 26th September, 1994, on the above subject matter, and to inform you that after re-consideration of your length of service, what should apply to you is termination of appointment.
“You would recall that your fresh appointment with the sports council commenced on the 20th March, 1990, that the state government no longer required your services, that you have put in four years, six months, and 10 days of service, which is less than the five years of service to qualify you for retirement.
“In this connection, I am directed to confirm to you, the termination of your appointment with the sports council with effect from 30th September 1994.”
From then on, Peters have been jobless. Perhaps, the man should have grabbed the offer to box for France in 1980 or even continued with his education. Maybe life would have been different.
“I can’t cry, but I am sorry for myself. However, I don’t want my Creator to be annoyed with me, after all, He has preserved me. Surely He will still bail me out. What can I do now at this age? Can my body take the punch again? I am going to see stars in the afternoon if my frail body receives punches now. But I can still give.
“I had my papers to study Architecture at the University of Guyana in 1977, but when American coach Archie Moore came, I dropped the idea and I regret it today. It’s my biggest regret; I would have been earning a living from another field since 1994. All I want to do now is get a diploma from a university because I want to dedicate the rest of my life to writing,” he added.
In the midst of his ordeal, he lost his wife and two kids in mysterious circumstances few years ago.
“I don’t have anybody again. I lost everything; my wife and two kids because I couldn’t raise just N5,000 — I believe it was a spiritual attack — and I didn’t have money to save them. I tried to raise money but I couldn’t. This is how the sports council ruined my life but I know that there is a fight that I must fight. It’s a fight for people like me and others out there.”
Fortunately, Peters may not have to fight any longer to earn his entitlements. The present Director of Sports, Ogun State, Adesola Faleti, said Senator Ibikunle Amosun, the governor of the state, has directed that all the ex-boxer’s entitlements should be paid.
Faleti said, “He had collected a part of his gratuity before but suddenly, we didn’t know why he didn’t collect the remaining part of it. After he granted Channels TV an interview, our governor wanted to help him. He wanted to pay all his entitlements.
“So they’ve asked him to come to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, so that they can assist him in getting his gratuity. When he came back (in 1990), he spent less than a year (before he was dismissed), which was not enough for him to get gratuity. So we appealed to the governor to merge some years he had spent before with that year, so that he could get something better. And the governor has approved it. So, we have been waiting for him to come again but we haven’t seen him.
“When I come back from the Commonwealth Games, I will take the issue up from where we stopped. Let him come back to the ministry; they will take up his case and assist him. I don’t want to go to the story of all what happened about him; what is most important is that the governor has agreed to help him and he should come and collect his entitlements.”
But Peters denied collecting a part of his gratuity, saying he had paid several visits to Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, to claim his money, to no avail.
“I have not been given (gratuity). As I talk to you, I don’t have the papers that pensioners have; I don’t know anything about it. In the last letter written to me, I was told that I would be receiving monthly alerts, that I have attained the age of pension since 2003 but in the past six weeks, I have not heard from them.
“Where is my reinstatement and double promotion letters? I need money to go and look after myself. My health is failing.”
Once a sportsman, always a sportsman goes a saying. Despite his predicament, Peters has kept himself busy, mostly with sporting activities around his hood and he admits, that’s the only thing that has kept him alive.
Peters said, “I started life with a strenuous sport like boxing, running 20 miles every morning and it is one of the things that have been keeping me alive but I am hungry, very hungry.
“I am grateful to God; I can still run from here (Ayobo) to Iyana Ipaja and back in three hours. I have been challenging all the young boys here to a contest but they have not been able to take up the challenge. I am fit; I last met a woman 12 years ago. When my problem started, I lost everything and I lost interest in the opposite sex.”
At the peak of his career, juju was predominant in amateur boxing but Peters insists boxing at that level was better than pro-boxing.
“Amateur boxers used juju in fighting until Archie Moore came to Nigeria. We were all involved in juju. I was a curious guy. So I got involved too because I wanted to know how it worked.
“They took our money, cut our bodies with razor blades until Moore came in around 1977. But it (juju) wasn’t working. It was when Moore came that I discovered the secret of boxing. All boxing needs is discipline, not juju.”
The retired boxer admits that former world champion, Davidson Andeh, was a thorn in his flesh during their active days in boxing. Tried as Peters could, Andeh always came out victorious.
He recalled a memorable encounter with Andeh, who has also been living in poor conditions in Benin City.
He said, “Andeh was my toughest opponent. After our first fight in 1979, we met in Lagos three months later for the Champion of Champions fight. When the fight was about to start, the Nigerian Navy band was rendering a song by Victor Uwaifo. It was one of my favourite songs, so, I started dancing; and the Bendel women, wearing red costume, walked up to me and said, ‘You dey dance abi? Davidson go kill you.’ But I danced even the more.
“Though they gave the fight to him, I didn’t like the decision. Davidson boxes the way I do, no clinching; we send punches.”
Now Peters hopes to help Andeh and retired boxers in pitiable conditions and even up-and-coming pugilists, if he is paid his outstanding money.
“If I can get my money, I will assist him, even if it is N2, 000 weekly. I have always wanted to have a boxing academy where all these young men, who just hang around and doing all sorts of things can box.”
These days, Peters consoles himself by reminiscing his most memorable moments as an active pugilist, one of which was at the World Championship in Bucharest, Romania, in 1985.
“There was this guy from Yugoslavia, he was a crazy man. He ate punches as if it was burger. In the second round, I started jabbing and after a while, he was on the canvass, sitting down like a Babalawo (herbalist) and looking at me. But I like him, he was a great boxer,” Peters said with a smile on his face.
But reality dawns on him, every time he lies on his bed, ready to sleep after a hectic day in ever-busy Lagos. The era, when he once lodged in the best hotels, ate the best foods and lived a good life was long gone. Now alone on his bed, no family, friends and fans, Peters broods over the future prospects of the Nigerian youth.
“I am always sad for the young ones. I feel like weeping for them. The elderly ones have spoilt this world,” he said.
He advised young boxers to seek greener pastures abroad or else risk neglect like in his case.
“I know that some people with whom we boxed together for Ogun are blind today. Nothing has been done for them. When you know boxing, try and get out of this place; it’s pathetic the way they look at boxers. They believe you are a hooligan. I started boxing while in school. I never went to parties; I was always reading boxing books,” Peters stated.
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