"It’s Better For Me To Commit Suicide Than Live" - Ex-Nigerian Boxer

Ex-boxer Ayodele Peters who represented Nigeria at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, and has won several Gold medals for Ogun State in boxing says he would have committed suicide if not that he knows it is a sin against God.

Years after representing Nigeria and Ogun State in different boxing games, the well-respected champion whom a lot of boxers look unto is a shadow of himself.

"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. 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, but look at me now”, Ayodele says.

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 would be in this state?

Ayodele now lives in an uncompleted building in Ayobo, a suburb of Lagos. He 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. Ayodeles’ 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.

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.

The sad part is that he is about to be evicted from the one room apartment he rented in the uncompleted building because the owner is about to complere it and move in. This is what has become of a man who used all his youthful days to make Nigeria proud.

Sadly, he has been to Ogun State several times seeking for his pension and help but little or no help has been rendered to him. The question now is, who will help Ayodele Peters, or should he be evicted out of his unsecured apartment into the streets and be left to die?

Oh I forgot, Ayodele lost his wife and two kids years ago in what he called a spiritual attack, but he would have been able to save them if he had N5,000.