Abuja-based Mark Mentors Basketball Club players said the leadership tussle in the Nigeria Basketball Federation prevented it from participating in the Savannah Conference 6 Finals.
The team’s Captain, Stanley Gamut, told newsmen on Thursday in Kaduna that they were absent so as not to be seen as taking sides in the politics of NBBF.
Gamut said: “The team decided to opt out because they didn’t want to be seen to be taking sides in the ongoing political battle of who heads the NBBF between Ahmadu Musa Kida and Dr Tijani Umar.”
Kida emerged through an election supervised by the Ministry of Youths and Sports in Abuja on June 13 and was inaugurated by the Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung.
On the other hand, Umar, the immediate past president emerged from an election conducted in Kano before the June 13 sports federations’ elections.
The development factionalised the NBBF, and while the Umar faction is conducting the ongoing competition, the Kida-led faction is asking clubs not to participate and await its directives on that.
Gamut, who is the Athletes Representative in the Umar-led NBBF board, said: “Mark Mentors will only be willing to compete in an atmosphere devoid of rancor”.
“We are not interested in further complicating the leadership crisis,’’ he said at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Indoor Sports Hall, Murtala Muhammed Square, Kaduna, venue of the event.
The two teams that failed to show up for the Savannah Conference 6 playoffs, Civil Defenders and Mark Mentors, had been replaced with Bauchi Nets and Kada Stars that did not qualify.
Trending
- 2024 UTME: Parents obey JAMB order to steer clear CBT centres
- 2024 UTME: Stop patronising fraudsters, JAMB warns candidates
- Pastor seeks divorce over alleged domestic violence
- Bobrisky, Cubana Chief Priest and Indabosky Bahose, by Tunde Odesola
- BUA driver crushes six to death, injures 30
- Court dismisses money laundering charge against ex-AGF
- Six injured as truck overturns in Lagos + Photo
- Alleged N80.2b fraud: IG withdraws policemen attached to Yahaya Bello