Nigerian boxers are expressing growing anger over the continued delay in repatriating the body of Oluwasegun Olanrewaju, 50 days after his untimely death during a fight at Bukom Arena in Ghana.

The frustration deepened just days after a seven-man panel submitted its final report on the incident to Ghana's Minister for Sport and Recreation, Kofi Adams. Despite the report's completion, there is still no clear timeline for when Olanrewaju’s remains will be returned to his grieving family.

“It just feels like the sports minister does not care about Nigerian boxers, as if we are nothing to them,” professional boxer Taiwo Esepo told our correspondent.

“Because just imagine a Nigerian boxer went out to go and fight and something like this happened, but they are not fighting for the parents so definitely, something is going on.

“Why can’t our authorities sue them? Why can’t they fight for us? This can happen to anyone tomorrow and all these can’t make any Nigerian boxer happy.”

Olanrewaju, widely known as ‘Success,’ collapsed during a match against Ghanaian boxer Jon Mbanugu at the Trust Sports Emporium Boxing Arena in Bukom on March 29. He was later pronounced dead at Korle-Bu Hospital.

UBO Champion Idowu Rasheed, who had faced Olanrewaju in the ring before, expressed deep distress over the ongoing situation.

“He is someone I have fought before and so this really hurt me to the core. When he died, I felt I would quit boxing but I had to come back because this is my profession and way of feeding myself and my family,” Rasheed said.

“And now, we still haven’t seen his body. They said he is dead and they haven’t brought his body for this long and that is not right at all. If he is dead, they should let the family see him and bury him so they can move on. His family and wife need to see him and bury him.”

Remi Aboderin, Secretary General of the Nigerian Boxing Board of Control (NBBofC), told our correspondent that a meeting took place on Monday but did not offer any clear update on when Olanrewaju’s remains would be repatriated.

Commonwealth Games medalist Abdul-Afeez Osoba also voiced his disappointment over the ongoing delay.

“I am not even that close to him but I can’t imagine it would have taken this long,” Osoba said.

“I want to believe the NBBofC are on it and discussing with the Ghana Boxing Authority but according to even my religion as a Muslim, he should have been buried immediately. It is not a good thing even for the family and they cannot be happy.”