Nigerian-born martial arts champion, Kamaru Usman says life was never a bird of roses for him as he had to hawk fufu in a desperate search of greener pastures.
Usman, who is the current UFC’s welterweight champion, told Channels Television in an interview that he moved to the US at the age of 8.
The Auchi-born fighter also disclosed that his father went to prison while he was still in college, and also talked about the father-daughter bond he enjoys with his five-year-old daughter, Samirah.
“We grew up in the village. We farmed. As a small boy, farm boy, I used to hawk Akpu, put hot Akpu on my head. I came from nothing.
“There is just struggle every day, the struggle to, how are we gonna eat next week, next month. What are we gonna do?
“We owned a small store where we sold clothes, we sold shoes, my mum sold bags, anything that we could sell, my mum was able to get and try to sell. My mum was a hustler and that is one of the things I respect so much about her as a woman with three rowdy Naija boys.”
“My daughter, Samirah, I love her to death. She’s very intriguing to me because from about 6 months to about three and half years of her life, she went to the gym with me every day. Then she hit about five years and then she started saying, ‘you know I’m not going to do this daddy, right. You know I’m not going do this sport.’
“I think I have to just accept that and honestly I don’t think I want her to this sport anyway. She’s got her thing, she’s doing gymnastics and for self defence. She does Ju-Jitsu because she has to learn how to control the situation if anything happens. I’m okay with those right now.”