The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) on Tuesday insisted it would go ahead with its planned 2019 Annual General Meeting (AGM) slated for Saturday in Abuja in spite of some legal issues.
The federation being led by the Musa Kida-led faction of the basketball family has in recent weeks been challenged in court by another group of basketball stakeholders.
A legal action filed by the League Management Company (LMC) which runs the Kwese Premier Basketball League (KPBL) had asked the Kida-led NBBF to stop acting on behalf of all stakeholders.
Afolabi Oni, the NBBF Media Officer, in a statement on Tuesday assured that the AGM would hold as scheduled however.
He said the meeting would hold “in spite of stories making the rounds about a possible postponement of the AGM due to a court ruling’’.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the KPBL had gone to court to seek the nullification of any basketball activity by the NBBF.
KPBL claimed that the world basketball governing body, FIBA, had nullified the two NBBF elections held in Kano and Abuja in June 2017 and concluded on having new elections.
It had also cited a March 29 judgment delivered by Justice Coram Quadri, which it claimed approved the nullity of both NBBF elections in 2017.
But the Kida-led NBBF described the legal action as the “last attempt by drowning men to confuse enthusiastic stakeholders ahead of the landmark event”.
It said it was worrisome that Josiah Daniel-Ebune, counsel to the KPBL, could be referring to another case which the body he was claiming to represent was not connected to in any way.
“We find it funny that this ….. body is referring to a case instituted by one El Hassan Auwalu and Abdullahi Bello in 2017 seeking to challenge the election that brought us on board.
“It definitely shows that some people whose aim is to disrupt basketball growth in Nigeria have now joined forces and are working together to distract our board by creating artificial crisis,” Kida was quoted as saying in the statement.
The NBBF said “unrecognised entities in the Nigerian basketball family cannot wave an ex parte order around the basketball body in Nigeria without the approval of FIBA’’.
The statement added that Kida’s NBBF had duly notified all relevant law enforcement agencies as a law-abiding citizen to forestall any breakdown of law and order.
