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NBBF makes a U-turn, suspends election

The Nigeria Basketball Federation has postponed its election, which was initially scheduled for Saturday.

This was contained in a communique issued at the end of the federation’s extraordinary congress held via Zoom on Thursday.

The move comes after the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development suspended the election over the leadership crisis rocking the federation.

The ministry’s decision was, however, initially rejected by the NBBF, who insisted that their constitution didn’t give the sports ministry the right to postpone their election.

Thursday’s move by the NBBF however saw them make a U-turn from their initial stand, postponing the election by “a few weeks”.

“That, as advised by the FMY&S (sports ministry) that the Elective Congress be postponed to a later date, congress unanimously agreed to postpone the elective congress by a few weeks.

“Congress mandated the NBBF president (Musa Ahmadu-Kida) to engage the FMY&SD in a positive discussion for a free, fair, transparent and successful elections to be held to usher in a new board,” the NBBF communique read.

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Ondo State Basketball Association, Francis Gbiri, has faulted the NBBF constitution.

All we are saying is that the NBBF constitution is self-centered, it is giving some people an advantage. Somebody is nominated, gets endorsement from one or two states and becomes an automatic member. I think it is undue favour, let everybody go to their constituencies and slug it out,” Gbiri told The PUNCH.

Gbiri, a former NBBF secretary-general, added, “I know that as far back as 2017, the then president of the federation sent it to FIBA and they made their observations and sent it back, it is the same constitution we still have. The grey areas in the constitution are that you cannot give people an automatic ticket without passing through the constituencies. If you think you are good, go to your base.”

According to him, it was the complaints of basketball stakeholders that made the sports minister Sunday Dare move the election indefinitely.

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