Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
Sports Minister, Chief Sunday Dare, has come under fire over his subtle imposition of Ahmadu Musa Kida as the President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).
The criticism was heaped on the minister yesterday by some basketball stakeholders at a media briefing in Abuja.
They described the action of the minister as illogical, irrational, unreasonable and miscarriage of justice.
The group under the umbrella “New Face of Basketball” was led by Chairman of Kaduna State Basketball Association, Pastor Scambo Morrison.
It questioned the methodology used by Dare to pick Kida as the NBBF President after publicly acknowledging that two elections took place on January 31,2022.
Morrison said the group decided to be silent for the sake of peaceful resolution and the amendment of the controversial constitution of the basketball federation.
“So, it is not news that the Minister of Youth and Sports indeed acknowledged that there were two elections. But our big surprise till today is that the minister and ministry never came out to talk to us about the findings of those elections. As good citizens of this country, we have remained very quiet, calm and disciplined waiting to hear the outcome of those elections.
“But till this day, nobody has called this particular faction to say anything to them concerning the election. Instead, we now found out that there are some people parading themselves as the ‘custodians of basketball in Nigeria. We want the minister to know that we have options if he fails to do the right thing” Morrison stated.
The group sought clarification from Dare on how Kida became the NBBF President having earlier pronounced that there were two elections and that the ministry was looking into the issue to make sure that things were resolved in the NBBF.
