Sports ministry, NBBF plan 109 basketball courts across Nigeria

THE Ministry of Youth and Sports is planning to develop basketball in Nigeria from the grassroots by building at least one court in each of the country’s 109 senatorial districts.

Sports minister Sunday Dare made the promise while receiving the President of the Nigeria Basketball  Federation Musa Kida who paid him a courtesy call after arriving from the 2021 AfroBasket qualifiers in Rwanda, where D’Tigers won all their three games.

“I came here to personally brief the Honorable Minister about Kigali,” Kida said. “Kigali was the first window for AfroBasket 2021 qualifiers. I brought in very glad tidings of our successes in beating all the teams we faced, but more importantly I brought the glad tidings of NBBF and the new technical crew headed by Mike Brown from the Golden States Warriors. 

“He is looking forward to meeting the minister. He understood very clearly with his team that the minister had to stay for more urgent national matters but he asked me specifically to send a very personal message 

“As we all know, Mike Brown is one of the best coaches in the world, but additionally, I came to personally thank the Minister of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports for allowing the Permanent Secretary to also represent him in Kigali which he did ably. For us, it shows the support that we have consistently enjoyed from the ministry and the government and we look forward to the continued support.”

In his response, Dare commended the NBBF board for putting smiles on the faces of Nigerians as he declared that basketball has come to stay in Nigeria.

“Beyond football, Nigerians have talents and competence in other sports,” the minister said.

“Our ascendancy in basketball is no longer stoppable. It has been proven, we are African champions in both the men and women with both qualifying for the Olympics. It has never happened before. Beyond football and athletics, clearly, basketball as a game has arrived in this country and we are a dominant force in the world.

“We are happy because we are in the hands of good administrators and managers of our teams because beyond the talents we put together, you also need people to manage them. These are the people that have set their eyes on greater glory, podium performance and I am sure so many other Nigerians join basketball revolution”, Dare said.

Dare then announced a partnership between the Federal Ministry of Sports and the NBBF to have at least one basketball court in each senatorial district across the country.

He said: “We hope to start a project to have at least one basketball court in at least one senatorial district in the country through private and public participation. That is a commitment that is being chaired by the NBBF and the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

“By January, 2021, we should have a template of how this will run, how the funding will be received, how it will be implemented and how those our young ones in primary and secondary schools, villages and some of these senatorial districts can just stroll into a basketball court and make basketball a culture. That is what happens in America.”