Vice President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, Mukhtar Kaleh has disclosed that FIBA Zone 3 President, retired Colonel Sam Ahmedu accused and castigated organisers of the illegal Africa Basketball League operating in Nigeria for not following due process in trying to establish the league.
According to Kaleh, Col Ahmedu who was critical about the ABL arrangement was speaking during the Central Board meeting of Fiba Africa which both of them attended in Cairo, Egypt in March where the Zone 3 president even “openly claimed that he does not own the Lagos Warriors Basketball Club”, one of the clubs participating in the purported league.
The NBBF vice president who was reacting to a piece by Pius Ayinor, the Sports Editor of the Punch newspaper titled, ‘Yeye pride killing Nigerian basketball’, Col Ahmedu was merely re-echoing the stand of the NBBF on the ABL that they should follow due process even if their project was a laudable one.
On the issue of pride, Kaleh said that the present NBBF Board is not peopled by proud persons as is being insinuated in the article but is open to any stakeholder who has anything to contribute in the development of the game.
“We have been very open and have invited any stakeholder who has anything to offer basketball to come on board and a lot have since been contributing to the progress of basketball in Nigeria. People like Deji Jayeola, Ajibarade Bello, Bade Latona, Fani, Lawal Garba, Pastor Skambo Morrison to name a few. But those that are so proud are the ones that feel they know better than everybody and so they can not serve their country unless they are at the driver’s seat, that is pride,” he noted.
To show that the NBBF president, Tijjani Umar was open to all stakeholders who are contributing in one way or the other, the NBBF vice president said “ Pius should also remember that the current President of the NBBF was the first to visit the Dolphins basketball facility and was full of praises for his (Pius’) boss the chairman of the Punch newspapers”, who is also the proprietor of Dolphins.
