Sports minister Sunday Dare, Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, and others have congratulated UFC champion, Israel Adesanya on successfully defending his middleweight title.
The 32-year-old Nigerian-New Zealander retained his belt by defeating Jared Cannonier via a unanimous decision in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Alongside, Dare and Dabiri-Erewa, former Super Eagles coach, Augustine Eguavoen and UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou, also congratulated Adesanya.
Ngannou and UFC welterweight champion, Nigeria’s Kamaru Usman, were at the Las Vegas venue to support Adesanya.
Dare’s congratulatory message read, “We are proud of Adesanya and Usman and we will continue to celebrate them because they always identify with Nigeria, they always proudly carry our flag everywhere they go. They are our global icons. We believe they have many more successes ahead of them.”
Meanwhile, the NIDCOM boss shared photographs of Adesanya’s fight on her verified Twitter handle with the caption, “Hearty congrats again,” referring to The Last Stylebender’s fifth successful title defence.
Hearty congrats again @stylebender 🍾🕺💃 pic.twitter.com/LJ8VeJSB1R
— Abike Dabiri-Erewa (@abikedabiri) July 3, 2022
Congratulations Israel Adesanya on your #UFC276 victory. One of the finest of the sport. Keep putting Nigeria on the map, 🇳🇬 @stylebender. https://t.co/I54e4RV1ek
— Austin Eguavoen (@coacheguavoen) July 3, 2022
Ngannou tweeted, “Since Jones been siting back and talking sh*t Izzy have defended his title a least 5 times. Well done CHAMP 🏆
@stylebender. Some people talk and some act.”
The faces of the fight game pulled up to stand with our brother @stylebender 👊🏿🌍🤴🏿🤴🏿🤴🏿 #AndStill pic.twitter.com/saZXTzrHbe
— KAMARU USMAN (@USMAN84kg) July 3, 2022
