Hundreds of basketball players under the aegis of the Nigeria Basketball Players Association have demanded 21 days notice before an Elective Congress of Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).
The protest which was staged on Wednesday in front of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports development located within the federal secretariat in Abuja was after authorities scheduled NBBF elective Congress for January 31, 2022.
During the protest, the basketball players accused Minister of Youth and Sports development Sunday Dare of being “willing agent of destabilisation” in the country’s basketball affairs.
Speaking on behalf of his co-players, newly elected NBBF players’ representative, Stanley Gumut, alleged that Minister Dare speaks “with sides of his mouth. I suspected something is fundamentally wrong with the sudden change of attitude of the sports minister.
“Minister set up a reconciliatory committee to mediate in the crisis, but since then, the minister has received the report even though the committee did not meet with us (players), but the report has not been made public, now the ministry is calling for an election.
“When we met the Permanent Secretary of the ministry on Wednesday he told us that they are afraid of FIBA that is why they are calling on the elections to hold on Monday. But, he also said, they were going to respond to our letter to them later. In the letter, we advised them to suspend the election until peace is restored in the federation.”
Also speaking, former NBA player and immediate past players’ representative in Kida’s led board, Ejike Ugboaja, wondered why for the past four years, there was nothing like basketball activities in the country.
“Now the ministry is bent on supporting a man who has succeeded in grounding the game in the country in the past four years. Players will have no option than to ban themselves from participating in basketball activities if the ministry should sacrifice the truth at the altar of fraud.
“If the ministry said they are afraid of FIBA, we the players will ban ourselves for Kida. A man who called us (Players) thugs wants to lead the federation again. Kida must apologise to us publicly as he insulted us publicly,” Ugboaja said.
A captain of one of the basketball clubs in Abuja, Alhassan Joseph, popularly known Embargo in his reaction said the players were surprised the ministry was concerned about FIBA than their welfare.
He reminded the ministry on the need to abide by the statutory 21-day notice to any NBBF election.
As at the time of filling this report, the ministry was yet to make any official statement.
