Sunday Dare, Sports Minister 
Musa Kida, former NBBF President 
Facts have emerged why the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development under the leadership of Sunday Dare as Minister is bent on forcing Musa Kida on the basketball stakeholders after it was obvious that the immediate past President of the NBBF was allegedly indulged in corrupt practices while in charge.
Sometimes in July last year, the Nigerian female basketball team (D’Tigress) asked the Minister to explain what happened to the alleged N2bn the Federal Government released to the ministry to settle the backlog of debts they owe to the basketball federation from pasts competitions since 2017
According to D’Tigress, “You are a leader and you should hold yourself accountable and federation to ensure transparency. Musa Kida is an investor/majority owner of AFA, the apparel company that you’ve contracted to dress our beloved Olympians, we support our own but is that not a conflict of interest?
“How convenient that PEAK the men’s team apparel and contracted sponsors with monetary incentives which NBBF has collected, conveniently ended up in Demurrage at Apapa Wharf? Now that it has been cleared with the assistance of the ministry, why are the goods in Musa Kida’s house and not in the federation’s warehouse? They queried the minister.
D’Tigress also alleged that the Ministry has paid Musa Kida N840m and N740m respectively but they are yet to see anything
The message to Dare, reads,” Please can you address the team and their fans how N73, 118 (36, 000, 000) debts could not be fulfilled since the 2018 world cup about 1.6bn later. Why every one of you Ogas are doing photo ups and headlines with D’Tigress blood, sweat and tears? Monkey work Bamboo chop,”
“After receiving a copy of the document containing the breakdown of debts officially and on your phone, you were contrite and personally sent a message to the team in February’ 2021 preparation’s camp in Atlanta promising that these debts will be fulfilled, was all that a pretend to stop players from revolting?
Consequently, the Nigeria Basketball Players Association have asked minister Sunday Dare to come up openly and tell Nigerians why he has decided to allow himself to be used as a tool to destabilize basketball in the country.
The newly elected players’ rep at the NBBF, Stanley Gumut told Core Reporters that he cannot fathom why Dare is speaking with his two sides of his mouth, saying that he suspected something is fundamentally wrong with the sudden change of attitude of the sports minister.
Gumut, who led over one hundred basketball players to the ministry of sports on Wednesday said, the Minister set up a reconciliatory committee to mediate in the crisis, but since then, they got information that the minister has received the report even though the committee did not meet with them (players), also the report has not to be made public, the ministry is calling for an election.
However, Gumut said, “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 today which we advised them to suspend the election until peace is restored in the federation.
It would be recalled that in a letter from the ministry notifying stakeholders that the elections has been slated for January 31, the ministry addressed Musa Kida as the President of NBBF even when it was the ministry that dissolved Kida’s led NBBF board and others and set up caretaker committee chairmen which has also elapsed.
Gumut, however, is asking the Minister and the Perm Sec why they prefer FIBA over players who are the main actors as he assured that either the ministry do the right thing or be ready to turn their family members and associate to basketball players that Kida will lead in the next four years if they go ahead with the election in Benin.
In the same vein, the former NBA player and immediate past players rep in Kida’s led board, Ejike Ugboaja said, for the past four years there was nothing like basketball activities in the country, and now the ministry is bent on supporting a man who has succeeded in grounding the game in the country, players will have no option than to ban themselves from participating in basketball activities if the ministry should sacrifice the truth in the alter 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 to lead the federation again. Kida must apologise to us publicly as he insulted us publicly,” Ugboaja said.
Meanwhile, a captain of one of the basketball clubs in Abuja, Alhassan Joseph aka Embargo in a reaction said the players are surprised the ministry is not concerned about their welfare but rather been afraid of FIBA.
