The center city of Abuja was littered on Thursday with both former and current basketball players who protested against the outgoing President of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF), Ahmed Musa Kida’s alleged used of derogatory words against them during the last AGM on Saturday.
The protesters who were spotted with various inscriptions on their T-Shirts such as, “#KidaMustGo’, “We are Basketball players, we are not thugs” claimed Kida wanted basketball stakeholders to believe they are thugs when he called them ‘hoodlums and thugs’ during the last AGM held in Abuja on Saturday.
A national female basketball player, Anam Joset also known as ‘JJ’ while addressing Sports journalists in Abuja yesterday said, they are tired of the unimpressive leadership of the outgoing president of the NBBF, Musa Kida which has brought the game of basketball to its lowest ebb in the last four years.
She noted that basketball is her only business and job but regretted that over the last four years she has not been able to take care of her family due to the inability of Kida led board to pay their allowances and bonuses among others.
’We are here today (Yesterday) because for the past four years we’ve not seen anything from the NBBF. Many of us here, feed our families with this game, we love the game and as a woman, I don’t want to do prostitution to take care of my family while God has given me the strength to play basketball and someone wants to take that away from me.
“After winning trophy for the country in 2017 and 2019 nothing has been given to me, how do I take care of myself not to talk of my family? We want all those things to stop,” she said.
Meanwhile, the newly elected basketball players rep, Stanly Gumut who led the protest stressed that the only way basketball could develop in Nigeria like other games, the leaders must be people who will have respect for the players who off-course are the main actors.
Gumut called on the minister of sports and other stakeholders to prevail on Kida to bring back the federation election to Abuja as other federations did so that credible people would be elected to lead the NBBF.
