Dear National Sports Commission, Stop This Sham Called NBBF Election
By Sylvanus Ofekun
The forthcoming Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) election slated for October 15, 2027 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, can only be described as a sham.
I have restrained myself from commenting on the dirty and ugly politics in the NBBF, especially after the long battle for football reform, but the activist and journalist in me will no longer allow me to keep quiet.
I have been around long enough and I have witnessed many contests among basketball stakeholders for positions on the board. It has never been short of drama, it is best described as a television series. But what we are witnessing today has moved beyond drama to guerrilla warfare, where inducement and replacement have become the only tactics.
Let us make no mistake about it: basketball in Nigeria is on life support. If the right thing is not done, the game may go extinct. Let us not be swayed by the flashes of brilliance of the D’Tigress on the continent. Most of those girls were scouted and developed abroad. Back home, the local league has been nothing but an abridged league, year in, year out.
How Did We Get Here?
It was a dummy that was sold to us in 2017. The then NBBF President, Tijjani Umar, who at that time was a director in the Federal Civil Service, had become a god. He was difficult to control and, as some stakeholders claimed, bullish to the extent that he locked out key stakeholders from the NBBF Congress held at the NAF Centre in Abuja.
At that time, the Federation had secured a sponsorship deal for the league, and both the senior men and women national teams were continental champions. Everything looked rosy for the Tijjani Umar-led board, until whispers of a third-term ambition emerged. That was all it took to gang up against him.
Engr. Musa Kida, a bright and illustrious gentleman, was then packaged and sold to Solomon Dalung, who was Minister of Sports at the time. The argument was that Kida, being from the private sector, would attract private investment into basketball. Eight years down the line, even as Chairman of NNPCL, nothing of that promise has materialised.
Dalung and his men brought in Kida in 2017 in an election conducted in a private hotel in Abuja, as against the designated venue, the Abuja National Stadium, now MKO Abiola Stadium. FIBA would later side with the Kida board against the Tijjani Umar group that held its own election earlier in Kano.
Today, that same dummy that brought in Engr. Kida is being resold to us. Only this time, the tactics have been remixed and poorly executed: -induce or replace-. The self-acclaimed anointed candidate has been leaving no stone unturned.
The actors of this nefarious game are working round the clock to ensure that the Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Mustapha Abdullahi a newcomer whose basketball antecedent can only be traced to 2024 emerges as the new supremo of the NBBF.
Frankly, there is nothing wrong with a newcomer aspiring to lead. What is wrong is the refusal to provide a level playing field.
One of the leading contenders, Mr. Igoche Mark, Olumide Oyedeji, has voiced his anger over the way things are being handled. Hear him:
“If we want to do election, let’s do election and if we don’t want to do election, let’s go for selection. I can tell you for a fact that a lot of Nigerian basketball stakeholders are disenfranchised because they are just being removed overnight for no reason or just cause, without following due process, because the election is around the corner. They are disenfranchised and they are not happy about the situation. This is happening all around the states. People they feel cannot vote for them, rather than appeal to them by giving reasons why they should vote for you as the right person for the job, they chose the shortcut of replacing them with people who are not into sports or know nothing about basketball, just because you want them to vote for you. A call came from my Deputy Governor to the Director of Sports asking for my name and that of Col. Sam Ahmedu to be changed, just because a certain top government official requested for that to happen, and in turn promised to electrify 3 villages in my state. This head of a certain federal agency has been going round inducing people with the benefits of his position.”
Another leading contender, former National Team Captain Olumide Oyedeji, is also crying blue murder. His South-West stronghold has witnessed attempts to change delegates overnight, especially those they know they cannot induce.
Ironically, the so-called anointed candidate, Mustapha Abdullahi, is preaching unity. “One key thing we are going to do is unification. We will bring all those factions together to sit as one team,” he said. But his statement is at variance with his actions.
The National Sports Commission under the leadership of Mallam Shehu Dikko and Hon. Bukola Olopade must step in and activate the powers of the Commission as was seen recently with the Judo Federation. Otherwise, allowing this sham called NBBF election to go ahead will be a recipe for uncontrollable disaster.
Sylvanus Ofekun, sleekysly5@gmail.com_
