THERE is no end in sight for the crisis in Nigerian basketball as the sports ministry and the Nigeria Basketball Federation appear to be at loggerheads.
The NBBF caretaker committee, led by the federation’s immediate past president and current candidate Musa Kida, has insisted on holding elections into the board in defiance of instructions from the sports ministry.
The ministry had directed that the elections be postponed indefinitely even after contending issues appeared to have been cleared at a congress of stakeholders.
However, the NBBF dismissed the ministry’s order and insisted that the election scheduled for Benin City on 30 October must go ahead.
In a strongly worded press release on Tuesday night, Kida condemned the sports ministry’s actions and advised candidates to disregard the postponement of the elections.
“The Nigeria Basketball Federation elections have urged basketball stakeholders to ignore an unsigned press statement credited to the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports (FMY&S) on several Social Media platforms indefinitely postponing the NBBF elections,” the press release read in part.
“The move to postpone the Elective Congress slated for Benin City, Edo State on the 30th of October, 2021 as approved by the NBBF Extra-Ordinary Congress of 9th October, 2021, in Abuja, is in contravention of the provisions of the 2019 NBBF approved statutes.”
Kida said the postponement was illegal and a direct usurpation of the powers of the NBBF Congress as enshrined in the 2019 NBBF Statutes.
He described the move as “repugnant to natural justice, equity, good conscience and an arbitrary use of power after the ministry and the Nigeria Olympics Committee had on numerous occasions confirmed the existence of a valid constitution as sanctioned by the Federation of International Basketball Associations in conducting its affairs as dictated by the NBBF constitution”.
However, on Wednesday morning, the NBBF announced the dissolution of Kida’s caretaker committee, which had been running the affairs of the body since the board was dissolved just before the Olympics in Tokyo.
A letter from the NBBF referenced NBBF/M.31/2021/Vol.IV/93 of October 26, 2021 and signed by Afolabi-Oluwayemi Olabisi, who is supposedly the secretary-general, relieved Kida of his caretaker duties.
“As you may recall that the Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, on 4th May, 2021, inaugurated the Caretaker Committees for 31 National Sports Federations, including Basketball, to run the affairs of the respective Federations ahead of election of their new Boards,” the letter reads in part.
“As the Nigeria Basketball Federation prepares for its Elective Congress, I am directed to inform you that the Federation’s Caretaker Committee has been dissolved with immediate effect.”
The basketball body has been embroiled in crisis for about four years, with two parallel bodies claiming control.
Kida had however appeared to have the sports ministry on his side until recently, especially since the women’s national team D’Tigress spoke out about their unpaid entitlements and called out both Kida and the sports ministry.
