As the Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Sunday Dare continued to keep mum over the crisis rocking the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) which led to parallel elections that produced factional presidents in the January 31, 2022 congress, Nigerian Basketball Players have urged him to speak up with the view to resolving the lingering leadership crisis..
The players, who stormed the office of the Head of Service office of the Sports Minister on Tuesday to register their displeasure, frowned at the posture of the Games Master in handling the leadership impasse rocking the federation.
Speaking to Journalists, a former NBA player and board member under the Engr. Musa Kida lead board NBBF, Ejike Ugboaja urged the Sports Minister to be bold enough and address the issue without sentiment.
“The two elections were concluded over two weeks ago, and we don’t know the stand of the Minister.
“ I served under the Musa Kida’s led board and I have played the game for more than twelve years, we have never experienced this type of problem before so the need for him to speak up now.
“We are here to find out if the Minister has been compromised, otherwise after two weeks of an election, I think by today, we ought to have our President (Igoche Mark) and his executive taking charge of the game and not the ministry running the show. We want the minister to come out and tell us what is going on, we want him as the father of the game to tell us his position before we know our next step.
“Without the players, there is no basketball,” Ugboaja stated.
.Stanely Gumut, the current Players Representative on the board of the NBBF said that basketball players home and abroad have thrown their weight behind. Igoche Mark, insisting that the players have vowed not to repeat the mistake made four years ago.
“We don’t want to repeat the mistake we made four years ago. Wasting of time is what we don’t want to repeat again, all our struggle is about players’ welfare, and the truth of the matter is that we, the players have thrown our weight behind Mr Igoche Mark.
“Unfortunately, the ministry is not saying anything about it, but we are the main actors of this game and without us, they can’t be NBBF so, we don’t want to play free basketball anymore. The minister is supposed to come out and talk to us as a father, but the man has been shying away from talking to us and his action is becoming worrisome to us.”Gumut stated.
Nigerian Basketball Players have vowed to resist every attempt to impose Engr.Musa Kida as the NBBF President. They described the previous NBBF board under Engr. Kida has a sham and a global disgrace to the basketball administration.
Meanwhile, the ministry of sports had issued a press statement a few days back claiming that it is waiting for reports from the parallel elections held in Abuja and Benin respectively on January 31, 2022.
