June 2, 1964 - Muhammad Ali (pictured with Nigerian Ambassador to the U.N. Simeon Adebo in March) went to the American Embassy for a courtesy call today and wound up in a bitter exchange with his Nigerian hosts who charged he had broken his promise to spend eight days in the country.
The scene was the office of Walter K. Scott, the deputy chief of mission. In walked Ali and his five-man entourage. They were followed by Hogan (Kid) Bassey, Nigeria’s former world featherweight champion, and other Nigerian Sports Council officials who are in charge of Ali’s stay in the country.
Scott said he was sorry to hear that Ali was cutting short his stay to fly to Cairo tomorrow. Ali said he was sorry too, but he had been held up in Ghana before flying to Nigeria yesterday.
“Besides,” said the heavyweight champion, “they’ve got big things lined up for me in Cairo. Nasser wants to see me, and they planned big doings for me two months ago. It’s more important than Nigeria.”
Bassey gripped the arms of his leather chair as if trying to keep from rising in anger.
“Cairo is not more important than Nigeria,” he exclaimed. “Nigeria is the biggest country in Africa.”
“One out of every five people in Africa lives in Nigeria,” Scott added.
“Well,” said Ali, “isn’t Egypt the powerfulest country with all them rockets and their big army and dams?”
“Mr. Muhammad,” said Bassey, “you are a champion. You are supposed to keep your promises. We scheduled an exhibition in Ibadan. Thousands have bought tickets to see you. We organized a soccer game specially in your honor. We invited important officials to banquets. You were picked to judge the Miss Nigeria contest Saturday.”
There was no concealing Bassey’s rage. “If you leave us now, you’ll mess everything up,” he said.
“Now look,” said Ali, wagging his finger, “I don’t appreciate anybody telling me to do this or do that. Nobody tells me what to do or when to do it but me.”
There was a stunned silence. Finally, Herbert Muhammad, a member of Ali’s entourage and son of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims, cleared his throat and spoke up soothingly: “Well now, I think we all agree this is of no concern to Mr. Scott and these nice embassy folks who’ve asked us around. This is just a little misunderstanding.”
But it wasn’t. The group filed out, shaking hands and smiling, but the bitterness remained.
Ali was due in five minutes for a radio interview, and he and his Nigerian hosts drove away in three cars.
But downtown, Ali stopped his car and got out, saying he wanted “to get me a record player.”
Bassey halted his car two blocks ahead, jumped out, and ran back muttering: “That clown. He wants to go shopping? He calls himself a champion? When’s he going to realize he’s over 21 and start acting like it?”
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