Key findings from Amarkai Amartefio Committee’s probe into Nigerian boxer’s death – Nsemkeka
The Amarkai Amartefio committee uncovered systemic and structural lapses in the Ghana Boxing Authority’s internal architecture during its investigations into the death of Nigerian boxer, Gabriel Olanrewaju.
In an investigation that spanned six weeks, the committee spoke to diplomats, promoters, matchmakers, boxers, executives of the Nigerian Boxing Board of Control (NBBofC), and their Ghanaian counterparts, the Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA).
Although the committee’s core business was to understand the circumstances that preceded and followed the death of the boxer who died after collapsing during a bout with Ghana’s John Mbanugu, the committee uncovered far more than it had planned to.
Structural flaws
In investigations, the committee discovered that the GBA sanctioned the bout even though there was no valid contract between the Nigerian boxer and the fight promoter.
When JoySports spoke to the GBA in April, its Communications Director, Mohammed Amin Lamptey insisted that the governing body had acted within the confines of the law.
‘‘The GBA will not sanction any fight if the boxer or his/her federation fails to go through the process that we all know. Before any bout, the boxer’s federation has to give us a release letter that confirms the credibility of the boxer. Number two, we need his medical history or his report and then the boxer’s license.’’
‘‘So GBA, we had to look at the boxer and that is how we got to know that he is a former Nigerian light-heavyweight champion, former West African champion, and a former African champion. 23 fights, 13 wins, only 8 defeats, and 2 draws. This was a credible opponent,’’ he insisted.
GBA Communications Director, Mohammed Amin Lamptey
However, the committee has found that not only did the GBA sanction the bout without a valid contract, but it’s Nigerian counterparts were in on the act. Â
‘‘They saw it, but they were not interested in verifying the documents because they were interested in their cut of the money. Because they get a percentage of the fight purse,’’ Ekow Asmah, a member of the Amarkai Amartefio committee, told JoySports.
Per the committee’s report, the release letter was signed on 24th March 2025, just two days before the original fight date.
The fight contract itself was drafted on the 22nd March 2025, less than a week to the fight.
‘‘A boxer that had not been training for any fight, never mind a training camp. Nothing at all. To leave Nigeria, not even by air but by road, got here on the 27th and was billed to fight the next day. To do that to a 40-year-old boxer shows they did not really care about the safety of the boxer. There is no way they should have issued the release at all,’’ Ekow Asmah said.
Bribery allegations
In his testimony to the committee, Olanrewaju’s trainer, Alamu, said the boxer did not honor the fight on the 28th of March because he had been asked to throw the fight.
His testimony was consistent with Remi Aboderin, the Secretary-General NBBofC’s claims of attempts by the promoter to fix the bout in favor of John Mbanugu.
However, the pair could not provide any proof beyond their allegations.
Meanwhile, the promoter mentioned ‘‘some objections’’, without specifying the nature of these objections, as the reason the bout was canceled.
According to him, Alamu got in touch in the morning of Saturday, March 29, and expressed the boxer’s willingness to fight that evening.
After that conversation, a weigh-in was hurriedly arranged and a fight was scheduled for that night.
Final fall: Gabriel Olanrewau collapsed in the ring in turned out to be his final moments in life
Questionable medical infrastructure
What’s more, the GBA and the fight promoters admitted that there was no mandatory medical assessment for this fight.
The mandatory pre-boxing medical assessments are necessary for ensuring that the boxer has no underlying medical conditions that could be further exacerbated by their participation in a professional fight. These assessments usually include a physical examination, neurological tests, heart and fitness tests, and vision tests.
If there were underlying issues that made him susceptible to concussion, cardiac arrest of whatever it is that killed him they would have been identified during the pre-bout mandatory medical assessment.
Any chances of the boxer surviving the concussion were further depleted by the fact that there were no doctors at ring-side, to provide the necessary emergency response.
In fact, the GBA’s entire emergency response infrastructure, according to the committee, is made up of just one nurse, parading as a qualified medical doctor.
Sources have also told JoySports, that the GBA has also not had a medical doctor in its employ since 2023.
Other promoters who gave testimonies to the Amarkai Amartefio Committee, said they had always paid for the GBA to provide medical doctors for their bouts but even though the governing body took the monies, it did not hold its end of the bargain.
In its testimony on the matter, the GBA admitted that it had not employed a medical doctor for any of its bouts or boxing activities since 2022.
Instead, it had replaced them with nurses, in a move that is not consistent with the regulations governing professional fights.
Yet, when quizzed on Joy FM’s Game Plan on April 4, Amin Lamptey insisted that the GBA had the right medical professionals at ring-side.
Main recommendation
The committee may have set out to investigate Olanrewaju’s death, but the scale of what they uncovered, left them with no choice than to recommend a full scale organizational audit of the GBA.
‘‘They are already operating without a license and that is a grave offense already. Radical reforms have to take place and an audit of the GBA will decide.
‘‘Once the audit is done, it will decide which direction the GBA should go and then with the promoters too because its operations once the financial audit starts, all aspects of the operations of the GBA will be under scrutiny so whatever has fallen short will be addressed,’’ Ekow Asmah told Joy Sports.
The Sports Ministry is expected to announce its next course of action this week, having adopted the committee’s recommendations.