Adedamola Joshua, an uncle of former heavyweight boxing champion, Anthony Joshua, has revealed that bystanders made away with the mobile phone of the boxer at the scene of the car crash on December 29, 2025.
Joshua who was travelling to his home town in Sagamu, Ogun State, on the fateful day, alongside his two close friends and professional associates, Sina Ghami and Abdul Latif Kevin Ayodele, were involved in a car accident.
The accident occurred on the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway in the Makun area of Ogun State, when the Lexus SUV carrying them collided with a stationary truck, killing his strength and conditioning coach, Sina Ghami, and personal trainer, Latif “Latz” Ayodele, at the scene.
Speaking in an interview with PUNCH, Joshua’s relative slammed Nigerians who after arriving accident scenes do not make effort to alert first responders but to make videos and loot victims’ personal effects.
“Some Nigerians act badly at accident scenes. When they are supposed to help, you will see them bringing out their phones to make videos and even steal from the victims. That is not right,” he said.
“We even heard that Anthony Joshua’s phone was stolen during the accident; such attitudes must be discouraged. The police and other emergency responders should get to the scene of an accident on time and cordon off the place.
“There is also the need to step up enlightenment across our motor parks and even for all Nigerians that we owe it a national duty to immediately call emergency toll lines to inform the appropriate agencies whenever we come across emergency situations like accidents, fire disasters, among others.
“Unfortunately, many Nigerians don’t even know the numbers to call during emergencies, whereas anybody can find himself or herself in an emergency at any time.”
Speaking further, Adedamola criticised Nigeria’s poor attitude towards emergency.
“I want to condemn the lackadaisical attitude of our government towards anything emergency. To see Joshua crossing the median after the accident when he was supposed to be on a stretcher was distressing,” he added.
“When you are in such trauma, the stress must be minimised; he was supposed to have been put in an ambulance and from there be treated. If it had been abroad, a helicopter would have arrived at the scene within five minutes for the evacuation of the victims of the accident.
“It is an eyesore for the people alive to see such a gory scene of the accident that is now being circulated on social media. The government should deploy more ambulances on that stretch of the road, because accidents are always happening on that road. It is not enough to have the officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps checking vehicle documents; let there be ambulances too, stationed along this road.”
A funeral prayer will be held for Sina Ghami and Latif “Latz” Ayodele at the London Central Mosque on Sunday.
Their remains had been repatriated to the United Kingdom during the week.
