Opinion: Wanted – A Nigerian political Floyd Mayweather

by Uche Onyebadi

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After the mainly one-sided fight, Canelo was asked what went wrong. His response? It was something to the effect that he couldn’t see Mayweather to land solid punches on him; that apparently, Mayweather had turned himself into a phantom in the ring.

My colleague and I had to forcefully dispossess our wallets of some $64.95 to watch the fight between pound-for-pound pugilist, Floyd Mayweather and Mexican boxing icon, Canelo Alvarez on the night of September 14, 2013.

In America, land of plenty and opportunity, where big business conglomerates conspire to pay most workers less than $7.50 an hour, this is more than a day’s job for a typical eight-hour job shift.

Mayweather weathered the storm despite expectations in some quarters that Canelo was the man to beat the man.

Unlike my colleague, I wasn’t part of the optimistic bandwagon that believed that the time had come to quarantine Mayweather in boxing history’s shelf of erstwhile champions. And, once both pugilists stepped onto the ring, I was more convinced that Mayweather had booked himself another ticket to consolidate his sense of invincibility.

After the mainly one-sided fight, Canelo was asked what went wrong. His response? It was something to the effect that he couldn’t see Mayweather to land solid punches on him; that apparently, Mayweather had turned himself into a phantom in the ring.

I believe that Canelo was being sincere and honest. I had arrived at the same conclusion upon noticing that the Mexican could not really land any telling punch on his opponent who, like the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard, is a man who comes across like a mirage in the ring to his opponents; a man who strikes with the deftness, venom and speed of an African mamba.

While I watched boxing that night, I saw a parallel for Nigeria in Canelo. Noticed how the youthful Mexican was full of promise before the fight?

That reminded me of Nigeria, so full of promise. Noticed how some boxing commentators in the media were full of expectation that Canelo had come to re-write boxing history? That reminded me of how Nigerian politicians preach about their redemptive power before elections.

Noticed how Canelo had no idea how to deal with Mayweather when time for action came? That reminded me of how Nigerian politicians win access to leadership in Aso Rock but turn out clueless about how to tackle the trouble with their country.

Noticed how, at the end of the fight, Canelo’s face was dotted with evidence of the savagery he had been subjected to by Mayweather? That was reminiscent of how Nigerian leaders leave the country at the end of their mediocre stewardship.

Back to Floyd Mayweather. He trains hard. He knows that each new challenger is indeed a challenge. He psyches himself up with a determination to conquer. He always studies his opponents and comes up with a credible game plan.

He has a team of boxing technicians to assess his training and map out the road to success. Even when he was at loggerheads with his father, he soon realised that dad was the best trainer in the world and quickly retraced his footsteps to learn at the feet of the master tactician.

When he gets into the ring, he takes his time to put his game plan into action and leaves no room for mediocrity. He understands the business of boxing business.

When the going gets gladiatorial in the ring, he knows how to retreat to the ropes, how to mesmerize his opponent in order to get the job done, and when to strike with devastating accuracy.

At the end of the day, he steps out as the winner, satisfied that he did best in both content and style, the result of which is that he would have made another challenger bite the dust.

And, in his post-fight press conference, he salutes the courage of his opponent, admits that the task was herculean, and lets anyone know that success does not come on a platter of diamond.

Is there any chance that Nigeria will someday produce the political leadership equivalent of Floyd Mayweather?

 

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Read this article in the Vanguard Newspapers

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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