Nigerian boxer Bash Ali has sued the Minister of Sports Solomon Dalung to court over an assault charge.
And he’s seeking a whooping N1b in compensation for injuries he claims to have sustained on the orders of the minister when he went visiting last month.
According to Bash Ali, he got beaten till he lost consciousness. ‘I was unconscious for about an hour until the ministry sent for paramedics who then carried me in a stretcher to the ministry’s staff clinic where I was given first aid treatment and when they saw that I was in extreme pains, I was immediately transferred to the Emergency Ward of the National Hospital where I stayed for about eight hours before I was rushed to the Trauma Department at National Hospital where I spent two days,‘ he told Punch.
An aide to the minister had earlier denied the claim, saying in a statement that Bash Ali had behaved in an obnoxious manner when he was at the minister’s office.
‘Bash Ali barricaded the entrance to the office of the minister with the men who accompanied him as he questioned why the Hungarian Ambassador to Nigeria would be allowed to see the minister while he, who came earlier was not given access.
‘The uniformed security tried to persuade Alli and his men to leave the minister’s secretary’s office but to no avail. The boxer who was carrying a file and mobile phone carefully went to the secretary’s table to drop his valuables and then fell flat on his back across the doorway.
‘Bash Ali was neither touched, shoved nor manhandled by security operatives of the minister. He feigned that he had been beaten up but we challenge him to produce physical evidence of assault, gun handle bumps, and bruises, swelling or otherwise as being presented to the public.’
However, this is not the first time the boxer would be involved in this type of controversy.
In 2013 he claimed to have been assaulted by security operatives of the then Minister of Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi.
Again in 2015, he got into an altercation with the security detail of a bank executive where he had gone to demand promised funds for a boxing match.
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