A Ghanaian fighter rises from the dust

Glen Arbor Sun

ACCRA, Ghana – Amid wet sheets hanging from clotheslines and scrawny chickens running about, the budding star of the Akotoku boxing club is not difficult to spot. Kpakpo Allotey, nicknamed “Lightning” by the local children who adore him, takes one jab after another at the hot and humid sub-Saharan African air as his trainers look on.

Lightning is a fighter, and a good one at that. He boxes in the super featherweight class, and has won all six of his professional bouts to date. The 22 year-old Accra native’s sneaky left hook and quick footwork evoke comparisons to Sugar Ray Robinson. At the urge of his coaches he plays checkers – called “drafts” in Ghana – between fights to improve his patience in the ring.

But Lightning’s training grounds are humble at best. The name of the club, “Akotoku” means fistfight in the local Gá language, and that fits the feel of the surroundings like a glove. The Akotoku club is located a few blocks off the Atlantic Ocean in a slum area of Accra known as James Town, the mean streets of Ghana’s capital where mostly fishermen reside.

In fact, calling Akotoku a club doesn’t aptly describe the hardships Kpakpo has endured on what he hopes is a road to success and stardom. The boxers here train on a dirt surface in a vacant lot that is surrounded on three sides by the kind of dilapidated, windowless two-story fishing shanties that make one James Town street indistinguishable from the next.

In fact, my taxi driver and I spend half an hour rolling down windows and asking the local boys about Akotoku before we locate the club. Its unofficial address, on Zion Street, means little to cabbies here since Accra just began adopting street names in the last 10 years. Ghanaian taxi drivers are used to shuttling passengers to landmarks or well-known hotels, but a foreigner requesting a tour through James Town is nearly unheard of.

Wide irrigation ditches on both sides of the bumpy road make the entrance into Akotoku an obstacle course. Because space is a commodity in Accra, a neighbor hangs clothes out to dry next to the boxing ring and lets their poultry run free. The dozen boys in the club sit on empty crates meant for yams as they cool down after training. I imagine them hurtling over the rock piles and tree stumps scattered about when they run wind sprints.

Yet Akotoku is credited with having harvested some of Ghana’s best boxers over the last 25 years – and even some who went on to win world championships. The king of them all is Azumah Nelson, whose name immediately brings a smile to any Ghanaian boy’s face. “Zoom Zoom” Nelson became a world champion in the featherweight class by outlasting his opponent, Wilfred Gomez in 11 rounds, in 1984 in Puerto Rico.

Nelson went on to fame and fortune and has since retired, but has had no contact with Akotoku since he joined the professional ranks. Ike Quartey, Alfred Kotey and D.K. Poison are other boxers who honed their skills here and have gone on to win world championships for Ghana. Their success has taken them around the world and earned them billions of Cedis ($1 equals nearly 9,000 Cedis). But the Akotoku club has seen none of that money.

Making do with what’s here

Sitting on an empty barrel, studying Kpakpo closely as the phenom jumps rope in a corner of the yard, is the trainer, nicknamed Spider. Clad in a neon yellow Florida t-shirt and jogging pants, Spider dresses like a sun-soaked tourist, but his job is no day at the beach. He is known all over Ghana as a legendary boxing coach because of his ability to turn young street-hardened boys in James Town into fighters who use their brains as well as their fists when they enter the ring.

The trainer preaches patience and discipline between the ropes. “Wait, wait until your opponent spends his energy, then go to work!” he lectures.

Spider’s slightly crooked nose proves that he, too, was a boxer in his younger days. He passes his own experiences onto Kpakpo, with whom he has worked since 1994. Since then Lightning has won 36 out of 40 amateur bouts, but has only been a professional fighter since last February.

“Endurance is the key,” Spider tells him. “Just go into the ring and deliver. The knockout will come on its own.” This trainer usually prepares his boxer for a six-round fight, but Lightning has been fortunate lately. In his last bout, just after Christmas, he knocked out the Ivorian, Sea Augustine, in just two rounds. Lightning is now ranked among the best super featherweight fighters in Ghana. But Spider hopes that he will be the best in his country, maybe even Africa, by the tenth match.

If Spider is the teacher and the strategist, then Bing is the motivator at Akotoku. Nicknamed Bing Crosby, though he resembles a mean bulldog more than a gentle singer, this short and stout Ghanaian wears a White Sox baseball cap, a No Fear t-shirt cut off at the arms and a gold chain around his neck. He jokes out loud to the neighborhood boys how frightened the newcomer looks when I approach the ring with hesitance during my first visit.

“What are you afraid of? You didn’t come here to box, did you?” he yells. Then Bing changes gears when he sees my eyes taking in the sorry state of Akotoku. “The conditions are not good but we make do,” he says. “We don’t have a funding base, yet we produce boxers of international fame.”

Reactions are mixed when I ask about Azumah Nelson, the Muhammed Ali of Ghanaian boxing. The coaches at Akotoku are proud that this club produced a national hero, but bitter that the relationship between the two did not continue. In a telephone interview, Nelson tells me only that times have changed since he trained at Akotoku, and the club is no longer a good one.

After thunder comes lightning

But at Akotoku the talk of the town is Kpakpo Allotey, who wears black sneakers and blue gym shorts with the word L-I-G-H-T-N-I-N-G engraved on them in red. He is not a menacing presence, standing only 5’9 at most and weighing less than 150 lbs. Still, Lightning’s legs are conditioned like powerful turbines, and he does a crossover pivot faster than anyone could possibly punch.

Kpakpo’s uncle was a featherweight boxer at Akotoku with a style so explosive that he earned the nickname “Thunder”. His father was a gentle farmer who let the boy enter the ring with some reluctance. But there was no going back when Lightning showed Akotoku what he could do. “Very, very good footwork,” remarks Charles Heward-Mills, a Ghanaian educated in England who serves as a liaison between the club and the outside world. Heward-Mills helps me as an interpreter since Kpakpo speaks very little English.

Lightning enjoyed what would be the experience of a lifetime for many poor Ghanaian boys in July of 2000. He fought in the 30th annual Miller Light/Indiana Black Expo Amateur Boxing Tournament in Indianapolis where he won all three of his bouts – the last two against Americans.

Kpakpo’s last opponent Peter Bush had told him before the fight that if the African won, ‘my friends will shoot you’. Lightning beat him in four rounds and emerged unscathed. “Rough guys, but nice place,” he remembered about America. Kpakpo takes good care of his trophy commemorating the fights and won’t let any of the other boys in James Town near it, and for good reason. Anything gold shines in these parts.

Bing and Spider are sensitive to talk of Lightning leaving the club if he begins fighting on the international stage some day. They are afraid he will leave Akotoku and forget about it, like boxers before him. Efforts are made to sign Kpakpo to a contract before he becomes too good and popular.

When I ask Lightning what advantages he gains from training and fighting in such dismal facilities, Bing answers for him: “Kpakpo likes the United States but prefers to train here because we train the hard way. We ask him to cut down trees and do roadwork and climb mountains. When boxers go off to America or Europe they become soft, whereas boxers who train here before they go fight have that advantage.”

The hands of temptation are just beginning to reach in and touch Kpakpo, now that he is 6-0 and gaining prominence on the national stage – no doubt one of the greatest boxing countries in Africa. For instance, Dr. Arthur Don, a former state minister who promoted the event on December 28 at the Globe Cinema in Accra -- where Lightning won his sixth professional bout – wouldn’t mind helping out Kpakpo on his path to stardom.

Dr. Don is no stranger to Akotoku’s prospects and has no trouble finding the club amidst the maze of dilapidated shacks. He talks glowingly of promoting the sport. “I want to make boxing the national pastime here through a program called the Stardom Sports Series. No one can go to sleep on these warm, sub-Saharan African nights when a Ghanaian wins a world championship.”

The promoter speaks with the passion and eloquence of a minister. “Boxers become role models, especially when they rise up out of the ghettos and inspire children. We are in dire need of heroes because we are still emerging from the throes of colonialism.”

Off the streets and into the ring

The number of street fights in James Town has declined recently despite the ghetto’s dog-eat-dog mentality. That’s because Akotoku invites anyone to come and try their hands in the ring on Friday afternoons. “We watch for talent in potential boxers,” admitted the club’s gym manager Herbert Bruce-Thompson. But Friday’s open challenges are a (relatively) safe way to pull together the community at week’s end.

Crowds of several thousand show up to cheer for their friends and jeer their enemies next to a primitive ring supported by stones on all sides. “The police come if they do it in the street,” said Thompson. “Here the referee tells them what’s legal and illegal.”

And anyone means anyone. On this particular Friday two good friends, Kwame, 5 and Emma, 6, are allowed to fight each other with Spider officiating. Since they are so young the gloves look like giant marshmallows on their tiny hands, yet they fight with the tenacity of tigers. Kwame, the smaller one, imitates Lightning in his leg movements, but finds himself whooped from the get-go.

In the next fight each boy’s father stands at opposite corners of the ring threatening to take away their son’s dinner – probably rice and plantains -- if he is defeated. Competition is fierce, but everyone understands the bouts are just for fun, as Spider leads the crowd in applauding after each fight.

No one leaves Akotoku until seeing Lightning in action. Under Spider’s tutelage the hero only dances and plays defense in the first round, waiting patiently for a rare opportunity to throw a left jab. He accidentally receives a low blow to start the second, but gets right up and puts his opponent on the ropes, only to see how the nemesis will react when cornered. Kpakpo backs off and lets the boy chase him around the ring, always dancing back and forth, shuffling his feet.

Finally, above the crowd’s chatter, Bing yells, “OK, let’s go to work Kpakpo,” and the boxer pummels his opponent into the ground.