- Charles Ogundiya
- January 25, 2025

The CEO of YUCATECO Boxing Promotion, Yakubu Imado, in an interview with Saturday Telegraph’s CHARLES OGUNDIYA said his passion for the sport of boxing came through during the #EndSARS protest. Excerpts:
What informed the decision to have so many countries for the maiden WBC-ABU amateur boxing championship in Nigeria?
It is very obvious. The championship is sanctioned by WBC in collaboration with the African Boxing Union and promoted by YUCATECO Boxing Promotion. All the countries affiliated under the auspices of ABU automatically have the chance to participate. They also have teaming boxers over there. There might be no other chance for WBC and ABU to have this opportunity again this year before the World Cup. Nobody is sure. So if we do not extend the opportunity to those other countries that means their pugilists will not have the opportunity to participate at the upcoming World Cup in Mexico. So, it is imperative and that’s why ABU in its own magnanimity and wisdom decided to collaborate with us to expand and give opportunities to other countries in Africa.
Do you see Nigeria boxers taking advantage of the forthcoming World Cup?
Foremost, we as an outfit got the hosting rights and it is taking place in Lagos, so with that, we are going to have more Nigerians participating. Automatically, I foresee a whole lot of Nigerians coming out in flying colors and got a chance to participate in the upcoming World Cup.
One of the biggest problems usually is lack of funds. After qualification, where will the funding come from?
We hope before then we get good sponsors, we get more corporate participation or even the government. But we, as you can see, we are not going to rely on the federation for this, we will do our best to see how to push as many Africans that qualify for the World Cup, especially Nigerians because that will definitely add to their points.
We have the boxing league, will the league helped Nigeria pugilists and give opportunity for more of them to improve on their skills?
In the first season, it was eight boxing clubs that participated and we talked about 312 bouts, which ran for about 13 weeks. In the second season, we now had about 12 boxing clubs, 312 boxers, 570 bouts, 22 consecutive weeks on every Friday, I don’t think that’s happening anywhere in the world. This is actually the longest boxing event in the history of mankind. So we were supposed to be in the Guinness Book of Records for that if we decide to proceed there. And now, why did we do our calendars in such a way? Because we want to get the consistency of that thing that can bring together so many boxers for them to raise budding talents. And believe me, 90% of these boxers coming for the championship participated in the league, so the effect of their readiness, preparedness, consistency and training is going to be executed in the WBC-ABU tournament which is going to put Nigeria on the path to victory and history.
At the last Olympics, a Nigerian boxer was disqualified due to doping and was banned, how are you fighting against such?
All these athletes don’t compete much and because of such difficulties, a lot of things were left unattended to. Believe me sincerely, one of the major things that we took very seriously is the anti-doping policy. Even within the scope of the week, we made sure we monitor our boxers, we give them close-marking to be sure we are not just giving them money for them to fight, we are giving them to a part of society. So each and every one of them has the case money. They monitor them, it’s like they’re on a programme. They monitor them within the room and outside the room. We give them close marking and we take them very seriously. And part of what we have done is to key in into the WBC initiative that is called BoxMed, which is Box Medicine, where we hired two medical doctors as scribe, and they are already starting on that given programme. All boxers in the YUCATECO family, in the YUCATECO League have their medical record. We examine them from time to time until they have been evaluated by medical doctors.
So if there is anything else we can catch up on at that given point in time we can actually manage them and want to fit again in line with the rules, policies, stipulated by what they are doing at the agency before we put them back in the limelight. So believe me, we are doing great on that.
It has been a kind of self-motivated investment, what would you say has been driving you on?
Like I told you, this is driven by passion. I believe you must be able to prove to the world that your idea is good enough and it’s achievable before you start telling anyone to come and throw money into it. Like I said, I’ve been enjoying the goodwill of friends and family members who share this vision with me and that is what we’ve been doing. Remember when we started two three years ago. One question I keep receiving is whether we can sustain it as there have been several initiatives like this in the past and we are not going anywhere anytime soon. We have come to stay. We have come to change the narratives. We know the challenges that do exist. That is why we came. We came in there because of the challenges that existed and that is what we want to change. And nothing whatsoever is going to discourage us. From the beginning, it’s been one challenge to the other on my part. I have fought all kinds of different battles that would have discouraged us but we were never discouraged because we know it will come. You see, when you want to make a change, you should be ready for people, the system is going to resist when you are bringing change, we are not afraid to measure up. The system is not going to change. We are going to change the system for good. And that is the dividend that we are all seeing now. I think we are on the right path.
With the next Olympics three years away, are we going to see the impact of the YUCATECO League?
The truth is, they never saw us coming, we weren’t expecting anything from the Olympics. That was why we decided to start this programme and they saw that the programme that we went into is going to expose their ineptitude. That was why you saw the criticism and the fight against the initiative, but we were steadfast. We are not using that to discredit them, it is in the spirit of patriotism. So we have been on the table working, we are only inviting the rest of the stakeholders to come and join us on the board. Let’s continue to build the new generation of boxers that will make Nigeria proud. And believe me sincerely, I’ll just give you a point in time. As far as Africa is concerned, as far as the world is concerned, Nigeria has the best young generation of boxers now that will do wonders to rule the world soon. And to quote me, the National Sports Festival is right around the corner, that will be a true test, the Gateway Games, which is going to be a true test for the impact of the YUCATECO Boxing Promotion on the Nigerian pugilists as you will see what will happen. I can assure you now, the various states are going to be partaking in boxing games. You will be surprised that all the states that will be participating in there rely on the boxers from the league. Boxers representing River State, Ondo State, Ogun, Lagos, are all from the league. What does that tell you? It’s a new dawn. So if we even eventually go to the Olympics or any game now, it’s not all about the medals, but we are going to put out an outstanding performance that will project the name of the country.
Why the interest in boxing? Have you been a boxer before?
I’ve never boxed before. I am not a boxer. Like I said, it’s passion and the love to see other people grow. I always like open opportunities for people to pursue their career and most importantly the passion was actually born during the End Sars when I saw that a lot still has to be done to engage our teaming youths so that they can be off the streets and a way of arresting the restiveness in our youths. That was how the passion was born.