Following the recently concluded Elective Congress of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) that returned Engr, Ahmadu Musa Kida, Babatunde Ogunade, and Olabisi Afolabi-Oluwayemi as president, vice president and secretary general respectively, there were reports of another congress in Abuja.
According to the reports, one Mark Igoche was returned president and Osita Okechuckwu as vice president in a “congress held in Abuja in line with Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports directives.”
Following this confusion, The Politico contacted FIBA in Switzerland to get clarification on the state of affairs of basketball administration in Nigeria. FIBA is to basketball what FIFA is to football. It is the world governing body of basketball.
FIBA referred The Politico to its official website (www.fiba.basketball) where they have published the names of the recognized governing officials of basketball in Nigeria.
According to the FIBA website which was updated following the results of the elective congress in Benin City, Edo State monitored by their official, Ahmed Elhariri, President of FIBA Zone 5 and member, FIBA Central Board, Engr, Ahmadu Musa Kida, Babatunde Ogunade, and Olabisi Afolabi-Oluwayemi are the recognized NBBF officials.
One of the stakeholders in basketball in Nigeria who is conversant with the crisis that bedeviled the federation in the past, told The Politico that the parallel congress was sponsored by officials in the ministry of sports complicit in the $2.2million Kwese Deal fraud perpetrated by the NBBF board headed by one of its former presidents, Mallam Tijjani Umar. Umar is a permanent secretary now in the villa.
“There is no confusion in NBBF as being reported. There are just people complicit in the Kwese Deal who knowing that they cannot prevail at the international level, want to scuttle our local league in their bid to hide their fraud,” the Source said.
The Politico had carried details of the Kwese Deal fraud in NBBF’s Stolen $2.2 Million
