World Boxing Heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua has revealed he owed his disciplined lifestyle to his stay in Nigerian boarding school.
Joshua, who was born to a Nigerian woman, Yeta, and an Irish-Nigerian father, Robert explained in a recent interview with Daily Mail that, he had been in a Nigerian boarding house for six months, when he was 11 years old.
He narrated how he thought, going to Nigeria on holiday, only to end up in a boarding school;
“I thought I was going there (Nigeria) on holiday. I wasn’t prepared for it. It was a boarding school as well.
At the time you think ‘Why?’, but as you get older you think it was good that you experienced it. It was good for me.
I think my mum was trying to do some business there; maybe she had it in her mind. You don’t just randomly decide to move there. She might have been thinking about it, but didn’t inform us because we were kids. We stayed out there, not long, only six months.
It was a change and I thought I was going to go for the full course: 5.30am in the morning, up fetch your water, put like an iron in your water to warm it up. Your clothes had to be washed and ironed.
It wasn’t an issue but I wasn’t prepared. It was a good discipline.
We got beaten. That’s my culture: beating. The government raise your kids now; parents aren’t allowed to raise their kids, because there is so much control about what you do or what you say. In the (Nigerian) culture it’s family, outside support; everyone has a role in raising the kids.
I thought I was in heaven (when I returned to England).
(But) when you are in sport you become a representation of people. I’ve got it (an outline of Nigeria) tattooed on my arm, so people can relate to me.
I don’t know if (a fight there) will happen,” he said.
