Sports minister Solomon Dalung has told the International Basketball Federation officials on a fact-finding visit to the country that there is no crisis in the Nigeria Basketball Federation.
The country’s basketball has plunged into crisis, with Musa Ahmadu-Kida and Tijjani Umar laying claim to the leadership of the NBBF.
While Ahmadu-Kida won the sports ministry and Nigeria Olympic Committee-backed June 13 NBBF presidential poll in Abuja, Tijjani won the June 12 purported election in Kano.
The development forced the world body to intervene.
The minister, who received the three-man FIBA delegation consisting of FIBA Executive Director, Africa, Alphonse Bile; Special Advisor to FIBA Secretary-General, Mr. Lubomir Kotleba; and FIBA Competition Commission member Fode Amara Condemade in his Abuja office on Monday, maintained that the NBBF presidential poll won by Ahmadu-Kida was free and fair.
“The position of government is that there is no crisis in basketball,” Dalung was quoted as saying in a statement by his media aide Nneka Anibeze. “We only heard and read in the papers of the allegations against government of interference in basketball election.
“Can a spectator take a shot from outside the field and the referee records it as a goal?
“Tijjani Umar did not register to contest or obtain an election form and therefore could not have contested the (NBBF) presidential post. If he obtained the election form, then he could have gone to the Appeals Committee to register his grievances, but he couldn’t appeal because he didn’t even buy a form, therefore he wasn’t even eligible to protest.”
He commended FIBA for their assistance to Nigeria through funding, grants and training.
source http://punchng.com/no-crisis-in-nbbf-minister-tells-fiba/
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