Anthony Joshua considering Nigeria as future bout venue

Anthony Joshua has expressed his desire to defend his heavyweight titles in Nigeria after reclaiming his world champion status in his rematch against Andy Ruiz Jr.

Since his victory over Ruiz, offers have flooded in for the Briton to stage future fights in numerous locations across the globe. Africa is amongst those to show interest in hosting Joshua, and the 30-year-old is keen to connect with his roots in Nigeria.

A fight in his parents’ home country would be the first world championship heavyweight fight outside of South Africa since Muhammad Ali and George Foreman participated in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ in Zaire.

“People were telling me I should go back [to Nigeria] for ages,” Joshua told reporters. “It was crazy because they don’t have 24-hour electricity but they still know me and support me.”

AJ told Pulse FM earlier in the year that he is “massively into Nigerian culture” which showed as he opted for the song ‘Water Get No Enemy’ by Nigerian legend Fela Kuti during his ring-walk on Saturday.

The comments should come with a pinch of salt, however. A day after his latest win Joshua was singing the praises of London and its fanbase, with Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium mooted as a potential destination.

A return to London will likely be the next location for a match, but a visit to Nigeria to defend his titles is a firm ambition for Joshua.

“I went to the ghettos of the ghettos where it’s not all about egos and beef, it’s about people who are hungry to survive,” he reflected on his visit across the Mediterranean. “It was one of the best things I’ve done. Africa’s rooting for me for sure, so I would definitely love to fight out there.”

Joshua has two upcoming boxing commitments for 2020 – an International Boxing Federation (IBF) clash against Kubrat Pulev and a later World Boxing Organisation (WBO) fight which is likely to be against Oleksandr Usyk.

After working hard to snatch his titles back from Mexican underdog Ruiz, Joshua will need to defend his status from the Bulgarian and Ukrainian heavyweights.

“The plan is to maintain the belts, so we will have to have conversations this week with the IBF and the WBO to see who goes first,” AJ’s promoter Eddie Hearn told The Telegraph.

“It’s our understanding that the IBF mandatory comes first, which is Pulev, so realistically it is Pulev and then Usyk in that order, with Dereck Chisora fighting Usyk in February or March and then AJ fighting the winner.”

Joshua added: “I can’t get too caught up in the moment and have to stay focused on the task at hand, which is not staying undefeated any more, but staying champion for as long as possible.”

Yahoo Sports

Nigerian students wrongly deported to Bosnia plead to be sent home

 Two Nigerian student table tennis players are begging authorities in Sarajevo to return them to their home country after they were wrongly deported to Bosnia by Croatian police, who mistook them for undocumented migrants.

In an interview with the Guardian, Abia Uchenna Alexandro and Eboh Kenneth Chinedu said they were victims of injustice and that the only reason they were forcibly taken to Bosnia is that they are black.

“We hold the truth and we have evidence of it,” said Chinedu via telephone from an immigration centre in east Sarajevo where the pair are detained. Uchenna and Chinedu, students at the Federal University of Technology Owerri in Nigeria, arrived in Croatia with a regular visa on 12 November, on their way to participate in the fifth World InterUniversities Championships, held this year in Pula.

The pair, both 18, left Pula for the Croatian capital, Zagreb, after the tournament and were supposed to fly to Lagos on 18 November. “The night before our departure, on the 17th, we checked out from the hostel and went for a walk in Zagreb,” said Chinedu. “Suddenly … we were stopped by the police who asked us for our identification documents. We tried to explain that our passports were in the hostel and that we had a regular visa, but they paid no attention to what we were saying.”

The officers allegedly mistook them for undocumented immigrants, put them in a van and transferred them to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina where, that day, Croatian authorities had gathered together a group of migrants who were intercepted as they were attempting to cross the country.

“There were men from Pakistan at the border,” said Chinedu. “They had been caught by the Croatians while attempting to cross the border from Bosnia. Police eventually ordered us to move through the woods. I refused and begged them one more time to check our status, but they wouldn’t listen. They kicked me in the back and told me they would shoot me if I didn’t move.”

Uchenna and Chinedu were eventually deported to Bosnia and ended up in a camp in Velika Kladuša, where thousands of migrants live in cramped tents without water or heating, and with temperatures as low as -2C.

The plight of the two students has made the news around the world and sparked a row between Croatia and Bosnia. Last weekend they were transferred to an immigration centre in east Sarajevo.

“Those people are victims of illegal acts on the Croatian side,” Dragan Mektić, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s minister of security, told al-Jazeera. “It is obvious that Croatian police forcibly displaced them.”

Police in Croatia denied any wrongdoing and raised doubts over the table tennis players’ intentions, suggesting they were lying. According to the police, another Nigerian who participated in the championship had attempted to cross the border with Slovenia from Croatia a few days before.

“Police officers have already witnessed cases of individuals who make an attempt, even abusing their participation in sports competitions in Croatia, to remain in the country or continue their journey illegally to other European countries,” Croatian police said.

“This is not true,” said Chinedu. “We were legal in Croatia. And our visa was valid until the 3 December. If we wanted to seek asylum, we could have asked for it because we had visas.”

The interior ministry in Zagreb said the men were stopped by police on 18 November, the day they were due to depart, and not the day before as the Nigerians claimed. However, the police’s version of events does not explain why the officers sent the students to Bosnia, knowing they had entered the country on a flight to Zagreb and not from Bosnia and knowing that they had a valid visa until 3 December.

In the meantime, authorities in Sarajevo are working on the case. The presence of the Nigerians in Bosnia – even if instigated by Croatian police – is technically illegal, given that their visa was valid only in Croatia, and which has now has expired.

“The case of two students from Nigeria is being handled by the ministry of security of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it is an internal issue involving illegal entrance to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the minister counsellor for the foreign affairs of Bosnia wrote in an email to the Guardian.

Dragan Mektić said: “Respecting legal procedures, we now have to take them back to Croatia. It is obvious that they have Croatian visas, that they are in Bosnia-Herzegovina illegally.”

The Nigerians said they were willing to go back to Croatia, but only on one condition: “If they take us back to Croatia, we want to have UN escorts with us. We will not go to Croatia without a UN representative. We are scared of the Croatian police after what they did to us.”

“We want to go back to Nigeria,” said Chinedu. “Please, help us, send us home immediately.”

The Guardian

Related story: Croatia 'wrongly deports' two Nigerian table tennis players to Bosnia

Video - Nigerian mothers juggle caring for kids with full time jobs

Nursing mothers in Nigeria are having a hard time caring for their kids and running their full time jobs. While some have a good family support system to help them with childcare, others oftentimes have to rely on daycare centres. CGTN's Kelechi Emekalam brings us a report on the daily struggles of nursing mothers in the West African nation.

Nigeria plans to contract Russian firm in reviving steel company

The Nigerian government is expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with a Russian firm for the resuscitation of the multi-billion U.S. dollars Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill in Kogi State in January 2020.

Olamilekan Adegbite, Nigeria's Minister of Mines and Steel, who disclosed this on Monday, said the government meant to bring back on stream the steel rolling mill which was down since the late Nigerian President Shehu Shagari regime.

The minister spoke during his facility tour of the National Steel Raw Material Exploration Agency on Monday in Kaduna State.

While addressing the management staff of the agency, the minister said once the Russian contractors to handle the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill were identified, the MoU would be signed and work would commence earnestly.

Adegbite said funds for the resuscitation of the steel mill is already in place, adding that a committee has been set up to kick-start the project.

The minister, however, directed the head of the National Steel Raw Material Agency, Umar Hassan to nominate two persons to be part of the committee, saying that the agency was critical to the Ajaokuta project.

Hassan said the agency saddled with the responsibility of mining and exploration in the country, was constrained by inadequate skills, inadequate project vehicles, modeling software as well as dilapidated offices.

Xinhua

Nigeria is forging on with crypto despite regulatory hurdles

 Nigeria’s cryptocurrency industry has been on an uphill trend in the past few years, and it’s showing no sign of regression. This is despite the country’s central bank issuing constant warnings to the citizens, asking them to steer clear of cryptos. The latest industry reports indicate that this trend is set to continue in 2020.

Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria, has been a leader in the crypto industry in Africa for years now. Its vibrant crypto industry has also seen it claim the top spot for Bitcoin searches on Google globally, ahead of established crypto hubs such as the U.S. and Japan.

In its annual market report, the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) noted the continued rise of cryptos, stating, “The CBN has also declared that digital currencies are not legal tender with naira as the sole legal tender. There are concerns on the use of other digital currency which is currently changing the global payment ecosystem.”

For Nigerians, cryptos offer hope of a better, more accessible and efficient financial system. Despite being the largest economy in Africa, the country has over 60 million citizens with no access to formal banking services. And while other African countries have sought to go around this through the use of mobile money, Nigeria hasn’t had much success with this either. According to the World Bank, only 6% of Nigerians use mobile money. This makes Nigeria a perfect market for crypto.

While the Nigerian Central Bank has discouraged its citizens from using cryptos, the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intends on integrating cryptos into its capital market. The SEC has set up a committee that will work on a regulatory framework for cryptos. It will look into issues such as investor protection, maintaining the integrity of the financial market and ensuring financial stability.

Crypto trading platforms in Nigeria have continued to see increased activity, with Paxful being one of the leaders. The exchange, which hit 3 million wallets recently, revealed that Nigeria continues to be one of its leading markets.

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey recognized the great potential the West African country has as a crypto hub. In his recent visit to Nigeria, he attended crypto meetups, later stating that he believes Africa will determine the future of crypto.

By Steve Kaaru

Coinggeek