KINYOGOLI’S APPEAL TO PRESIDENT SAMIA
▪️ He wants the President to build him a modern gym at his Maneromango home in Kisarawe District in the Coast Region
At 75 years of age, Habibu Kinyogoli, one of Tanzania’s most prominent boxers, is still strong enough to hold pads for his boxers during their workout sessions at his foundation gym in Ilala, Dar es Salaam.
He has rented one of the rooms in a building owned by the ruling party CCM and converted it into a gym for Kinyogoli Boxing Foundation.
Over 30 youthful boxers train daily at the gym, and one of them is Kinyogoli’s last born son, 17-year-old Jawadu Habibu Kinyogoli, a budding super-flyweight boxer.
“Each day we have more than 20 boxers training here, it’s a popular gym but it’s getting smaller because of the ever increasing number of boxers,” says Jawadu who aims to emulate his famous dad, one of Tanzania’s forgotten sports heroes.
“It’s amazing to see my father training with us, moving around with pads as boxers punch hard and he doesn’t complain, he’s still fit.”
Kinyogoli represented Tanzania’s national team from 1969 to 1976, winning several medals among them two silvers in the 1971 inaugural East Africa Federation Championships in Nairobi and the 1973 African Games in Lagos, Nigeria. He was also at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland and 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.
Many boxers at his age resign to fate, hardly associating themselves with boxing. Not so for Kinyogoli.
The passion that Kinyogoli had when he started boxing in 1958 at his home in Maneromango, Kisarawe District in the Coast Region, is still very much alive.
“Boxing is in my blood, I’m addicted to the sport, what I’m lacking is proper support to impart my knowledge to junior boxers,” points out Kinyogoli.
“I started coaching the youth in 1976 because no country can prosper in boxing without a proper junior and youth programme,” says Kinyogoli. The veteran boxer groomed one of Tanzania’s current top professional boxers, super-featherweight Ibrahim Class. The famous Matumla boxing brothers are also his products.
Kinyogoli recalls when he started coaching junior boxers he was using part of his salary to handle their daily needs like bus fare and other miscellaneous expenses.
“I was still working for Tanzania Ports Authority by then but now without a job it’s not been easy coaching the juniors.”
For this reason, Kinyogoli has appealed to Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu to build him a modern gym at his Maneromango home in Kisarawe District where he will conduct his junior and youth coaching sessions comfortably away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre.
Kinyogoli is proud of the president’s support for sports development in Tanzania which he describes as a new beginning.
“I will be very happy if our beloved president assists me on this project, and if possible make it a full package by extending the construction to include my own house which I can remember with the gym for what I’ve done for my country in boxing. They should not wait until I’m gone and then praise me for what I did for the country. Do it now please.”
In addition to the former celebrated boxer nurturing the talent of upcoming boxers, he says the Kinyogoli Boxing Foundation in Kisarawe can also be used to train young coaches who will eventually take over from him to maintain his legacy in this ambitious project.
Kinyogoli feels for Tanzania boxing to produce good boxers, more emphasis should be on putting proper structures in place so that boxers have a systematic transition from one stage to another.
“We must embrace junior and youth programme in the provinces,” says Kinyogoli,
“As coaches and former boxers we’re crowded in Dar es Salaam, we need more coaches in the provinces to develop the juniors from there.
“I got my junior coaching programme going at Simba Sports Club in 1976. As a staunch Simba supporter the club officials gave me one of the rooms. That’s where I coached the Matumla brothers to success and former international Joseph Marwa. We later moved to Railway Club and then Amana Centre.”
Kinyogoli’s interest in boxing was aroused by coach Saidi Uliza who taught him the fundamentals of the game when he started boxing in 1958 at his rural home in Maneromango in Kisarawe, one of the six districts in Tanzania’s Coast Region.
He says coach Uliza was a boxer during his hey days at Arnatouglu Club, and mostly they used to fight against the visiting navy sailors.
