LAGOS, Nigeria — Former world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua was discharged from Lagos’s Lagoon Hospital on Wednesday after surviving a car accident that killed two of his close friends, state officials said.
Joshua, 36, was traveling on Monday with friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele on a busy highway connecting Lagos and Ibadan when their SUV collided with a stationary truck. Nigerian police said Joshua suffered minor injuries, while Ghami and Ayodele, his longtime strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer, respectively, died at the scene.
Preliminary investigations by the Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) in Ogun state indicated that the SUV was traveling at excessive speed and had a burst tire before the crash. Authorities said the vehicle’s driver has also been discharged from the hospital and is being questioned, with possible prosecution for reckless driving.
A joint statement from Lagos and Ogun state governments said Joshua, “though heavy hearted and full of emotion over the loss of his two close friends, was deemed clinically fit to recuperate at home.” After leaving the hospital, Joshua and his mother visited the funeral home where the bodies of his friends were being prepared for repatriation.
Joshua, a British national whose family is from southwest Nigeria, recently defeated YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in Miami and had previously lost to fellow Briton Daniel Dubois in September 2024. He has been linked to a potential fight against compatriot and former world champion Tyson Fury.
Photos released by Nigerian authorities showed the mangled SUV involved in the accident, which occurred on one of Lagos’s heavily traveled highways.
