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Boxing legend, Evander Holyfield, visits Nigeria to trace ancestral roots
Holyfield is a renowned boxer. Net Photo
What you need to know:
ROOTS. Many celebrities in the Western world have taken to tracing their ancestry through DNA testing. The most popular destination for their quest is West Africa as it was where slavery flourished. They hope that finding their roots will give them a better understanding of life.
Nigerians in good numbers spent last weekend fist-punching the air in overwhelming excitement as five-time World Boxing Champion, Evander Holyfield, arrived Badagry, Lagos State, to trace his ancestral roots. The American boxer came seeking to reconnect with his African roots in the historic slave-port town that had earlier attracted celebrities like Rita Marley, widow of the reggae legend, Bob Marley.
Holyfield, who made appearance at the palace of the traditional ruler of Badagry, Wheno Aholu Meno Toyi I, to pay homage, said he was visiting the ancient town to see with his eyes the departure point of his ancestors. “I am happy to be in Badagry; I am glad to see His Royal Majesty, the Akran of Badagry; and also to reconnect and re-unite with my ancestral land.”
From the palace, the former World Champion went on a boat cruise along Badagry’s bewitching waterways in the company of Alfred Dickson, an associate of Michael Jackson’s younger brother, Marlon Jackson. It was gathered that Holyfield was using the opportunity of his visits to explore prospects of investing in Nigeria’s tourism industry. In recent years, Marlon Jackson has been a regular visitor to Nigeria where he is working on a project at Gberefun town, known for the most emotive spot, the ‘Point of No Return’.
According to Mr Ijinla Afolabi, the President and Founder of Centre for Heritage Preservation, Evander Holyfield was following in the footsteps of African American celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock who are using DNA testing to trace their ancestry. Afolabi, one of the dignitaries at the palace to receive Holyfield, said Whoppi’s success in finding out she belonged to the Papel and Bayote people of Guinea Bissau was just one of many inspirations to African-Americans to embark on spiritual journeys to Africa.
Already, significant numbers of rich African-Americans have traced their roots to one of just 46 ethnic groups. Historians say three large regions of Atlantic Africa were the major contributors to the slave trade. They were the Upper Guinea, including the modern countries of Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia; Lower Guinea, including the southern part of eastern Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria; and West Central Africa, which encompassed mostly the western portions of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
Marlon Jackson is involved in a huge project that will transform the ‘Point of No Return’ in Nigeria into a $3.4 billion slavery memorial that will double as a luxury resort and a museum housing the memorabilia collection of the Jackson Five musical group. The idea to house the Jackson 5 museum on the sacred site came to Marlon Jackson during his first trip to Nigeria. Literature from The Motherland Group (TMG), the investment company behind the project, said the Badagry Historical Resort will be marketed to African-Americans as a mixture of luxury tourist attractions and historical education. Visitors will be able to see the route their ancestors walked before boarding slave ships; they will also be able to pay their respects at the site of a mass grave for those who died before boarding ships across the Atlantic Ocean; and they can visit a replica slave ship to see the conditions Africans suffered hundreds of years ago.
Of the museum, the literature assured that “This will be an adventurous ride giving you an historical overview of African music. From hologram images, concert footage, a state of the art recording facility, to robotic figures displaying the rhythmic beats from 300 years ago where music began leading up to the biggest African group in the world, The Jackson Five.”
Before the Jacksons saw Badagry and fell in love with it, Rita Marley, widow of reggae idol was first to make Nigeria her first pitch. However, conned out of her dollars and a dream of a coveted home in Badagry, she relocated to Ghana. Dozens of slave descendants have since come in Rita’s wake, from far-flung places as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, United Kingdom, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia and the United States. Speaking further on Holyfield’s homecoming, Afolabi said there is no one on earth without any sense of root. “America cannot fill the spiritual void in the hearts of African Americans; Remember the saying ‘East of West, home is best’.”
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Encounter with the legend
David Sseppuuya
In the muscular, adrenaline-fuelled world of boxing, one man has always stood out for his gentle ways. Where thugs like Chisora spit and slap, ruffians such as Tyson bite and bluster, and scoundrels the likes of Mayweather abuse their spouses and managers, Evander Holyfield is the blinding opposite, quiet in his ways, and calm even in the warrior’s arena that is his chosen trade.
I met Holyfield in fairly unexpected circumstances. Seated alone on a row in a largely darkened boxing hall in Barcelona, I happened to glance two rows behind me at another solitary figure. To my delight, it was the world heavyweight champion, soaking in the amateur scene as young boxers vied for Olympic medals on the way to the professional ranks.
The Americans did fairly well in those Games, in 1992, with their big card Oscar de la Hoya striking gold, though they were to be trumped by the Cubans. Uganda’s big hopes, Fred Muteweta, Franco Wanyama, and Godfrey Wakabu, were eliminated before the medal bouts, leaving me to root for the Cubans.
Recognising Holyfield, I confidently strode up – he had no bodyguard and hangers-on that big champs tend to go out with - introduced myself and asked for an autograph. He smiled, held out his hand, and left me a little embarrassed. I did not have a book or magazine for him to sign, so I improvised with a business card and the koffia (cap) on my head. (Returning home a month or so later, I was flabbergasted when, against my express instructions, the maid at our house duly washed the cap and with it the autograph).
Three or four years later, Holyfield was to fight his most famous bout, against Mike Tyson, when the outclassed Tyson decided to take a bite out of Holyfield’s ear. I have not seen Holyfield since, but I suspect that he probably still has the physical and mental scars of that encounter. His devout Christianity, though, means that he forgave Tyson and will live on as the ring gentleman he always was.
