By
Banji Ojewale
Forty years ago on October 30
1974, the world was rocked by the celebrated fight between Muhammad Ali,
ex-heavyweight boxing champion of the world and George Foreman, the title
holder. The colorful Ali aptly called the bout the Rumble in the jungle because
it took place in thickly forested Zaire , now known as the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC).
Muhammad Ali
(pix: Reuters)
It was a huge, larger-than-life
affair put together by an imperial president Mobutu Sese Seko with many
unprecedented features. It was the first heavyweight championship contest in
Africa; it brought together two of the planet’s greatest pugilists; it saw
Mubutu budget more than ten million dollars to promote the show; it gave the
fighters their biggest ever earnings; finally, it offered Africa the rare
opportunity to see two of its eminent sons battle for supremacy on their own
soil. They had always been forced to do it away from “home”.
The African leader was said to
have traveled this expensive route in order to cover up for years of his corrupt
era, egregious human rights abuse and misrule, all of which pauperized the
country. He did not succeed. He failed to exploit the potential salutary public
relations of the fight to improve the lot of the people. Actually it would
appear Zaire
got the rough end of the stick, because two years later in 1976, the country
gave the international community the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).