Barring unforeseen circumstances, stakeholders in Nigeria’s basketball will meet in Abuja this week to elect new leadership for the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).
Immediate past president of the federation, Musa Kida’s position is being challenged by a faction of the federation loyal to erstwhile NBBF president, Tijjani Umar.
The NBBF election is the most contentious of the Sports Federations’ polls, with Umar’s supporter’s angling to oust Kida and his men.
At the weekend, Umar’s loyalists celebrated as if they had won the FIBA Cup when two of their men, Scott Nnaji and Stanley Gumut won elections into the emerging NBBF board.
At the elections held at the Package B of the Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja, Gumut, a former captain of Mark Mentors of Abuja, polled 25 votes to beat Yakubu Usman from Adamawa State to emerge basketball players representative on the NBBF board.
Nnaji, coach of the Customs of Lagos, also defeated Coach Ogoh Odaudu of Royal Hoopers of Port Harcourt by 19 votes to 18 to emerge as representative of technical officials on the board.
At the weekend, the NBBF announced that the extraordinary congress, earlier slated for October 2, has been shifted by a week.
It said the shift in date was a fall out of a meeting involving some basketball stakeholders, the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) and the Sports Ministry, which led to insinuations over the authenticity of the NBBF constitution.
According to Kida, who is the chairman of the NBBF Caretaker Committee, “The shift is to allow all our stakeholders to plan their movements after days of uncertainty as the federation targets 100 per cent attendance.
“The venue for the extraordinary congress to set in motion the electoral remains the same.
“The meeting we had with the NOC and the ministry was instructive and timely which further strengthened our position on the constitution of the NBBF.”
Kida noted that every modern society keeps evolving with necessary changes made where and when needed with basketball not being an exception.
“Same goes for the constitution and daily governance of Nigerian basketball. But, to make those changes, the laid down process must be followed.”
