Kida applauds NBBF Board, gives date for return of Premier league

Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, Engineer Ahmadu Musa Kida, has commended his Board at the Basketball Federation, while expressing optimism that the Nigeria Basketball Premier League will return to action in September .

Kida, who dropped the hint while answering questions as a guest on the FCT Football Update Personality Interview Segment said they are working very hard to ensure that the League returns in September.

 He said the Federation will pull its resources together to ensure the commencement of the League while establishing contacts with identified sponsors, many of whom got fatigued due to the past  unfolding events in the Federation. 

“We are very determined that we are going to have a Premier League competition this year. So I am really very happy to announce to you that  we have already written letters to the clubs, and in that light, despite the fact that we don’t have a sponsor yet , we are going  to dig into personal means in terms of hosting the Premier League for this year, starting with the conference eliminations on September 7. By beginning of October,  we’ll be able to conclude with the finals in Lagos. With that we’ll be able to have a league champion that can represent Nigeria, in the continental FIBA Africa, tournament.”

Speaking on the efforts made to improve basketball at the local level, Kida said: “For the first time in the history of basketball in the country, we had a title sponsorship for the Divisions One and Two Leagues, which were religiously carried out every year. We had an initial sponsorship by Total for two years running, 2018/2019 following the achievements made by the Federation and then signed off for another five years, which is unprecedented. While noting that the Div Two could easily key into the youth programme of the Federation’s Developmental programmes”.

“For me, that’s one of the huge achievements of the Federation  though it did not accessed the media visibility it deserves. The Federation have also conducted training for referees, table officials and games supervisors and maintained it regularly on its calendar and that has produced officials that can be relied upon without the need for officials from other countries for international tournaments. Clinics and Media seminars were also organized for our journalists on the best way to reporting the game of basketball.”