With the finesse of a fistic legend, Francis Boniface Cheka has punched his way up to the nation’s boxing glory, routing adversaries en route with the ruthlessness of a hurricane and earning himself the appellation of SMG (Semi- Machine Gun).
Francis Boniface Cheka
But on February 4, this year, Cheka stood in the dock, entrapped with a gun that could not fire. Also in court with Cheka, waiting for the verdict was Bahati Kibanda, Cheka’s bar manager alleged to have been assaulted by Cheka.
In the proceedings that followed the IBF Continental Africa Super Middleweight Champion badly fumbled when he was given chance to speak and provide the court with grounds for mitigation and possibly get off the hook that was about to catch him. However, he just proved himself a novice and easily put his head in the noose.
Without a fight, Cheka provided the magistrate with a blank check and told the court to decide his fate whichever way. He did not know that, as an experienced fighter, he was lowering his guard and the magistrate would knock him on the chin with a most stunning shot. “I leave it to the court to decide whatever it likes,” he said.
The magistrate threw the shot and caught Cheka on the chin slap bang, knocking him into jail with a 3-year jail term and a fine on top. Cheka did not know what hit him, when he came back to his senses he could not believe what he had heard.
His wife Tosha Azenga, heavy with child and who had always accompanied him to the court, broke down and wept. His brother Cosmas Cheka, also a boxer thought what the magistrate Said Msuya had just said was a dream.
Kibanda’s heart must have warmed with pleasure and satisfaction. If it had been an occasion elsewhere he would have clapped his hands heartily. Cheka’s coach Abdallah Saleh ‘Komando’ was as much disappointed and angered. Since the case began last year on July 2, he had tried to make Cheka settle the account with Kibanda out of court.
“I always told him to approach Kibanda and try to settle the matter with him out of court, but he merely belittled my advice,” Saleh explained. Cheka had been arraigned in 2014 for clobbering Kibanda whom he blamed to have caused him financial loss.
There were four witnesses against Cheka some of whom said Cheka had thoroughly walloped a hapless Kibanda till he lost sense. Kibanda was as a result hospitalised.
Cheka should have known better that in life one has to earn their own life or freedom for that matter and that comes with a price – a fight.
Standing in the dock, accused of committing bodily assault against the manager of his Vijana Social Baa in Morogoro, Cheka’s home town and birth place, Cheka may have had the impress i o n that he was too admirable for the court to go to jail.
He did not know that by telling the court to decide what it liked, he was displaying over-confidence akin to arrogance and was as a result rubbing up the court the wrong way. He, likewise, did not know that without a witness to support his argument, he was highly vulnerable.
Born on April 15, 1982, Cheka went to jail for the first time in his life just two days before 23rd birthday. His wife Azenga’s pain was understandable.
Expecting a baby s o o n , she n e e d s her husband close by. Still, also inconvenienced by Cheka’s jailing was Cosmas, who said his brother’s incarceration exposed him to a bleak future.
Observers have viewed Cheka’s case and his imprisonment with variant opinions. His coach Saleh sympathises with him saying that threeyear imprisonment is too long a time for such a fine and young boxer like Cheka and will ruin his career. Others blame the sad fate of the Cheka on the boxer himself.
The money he had earned from his professional boxing career had gone to his head and he was arrogant, they say. Boxing is also known as the gentleman’s game. A boxer who beats other people who cannot defend themselves against him is a hooligan.
By taking the law into his own hand and punishing Kibanda so severely, Cheka smudged the pugilism profession. Other boxers of good standing cannot be proud of him much less than they can feel honour as athletes with the boxing skill. Saleh says they will appeal the judgement, but Cheka himself should appeal his behaviour.
By LAWI JOEL, Tanzania Daily News
