It’s time to close ranks and move Nigerian basketball forward- Umar

You have just been re-elected. What is your immediate plan for Nigerian basketball?Without any doubt we are going to give more attention to capacity and development aspect of the game. We are going to streamline the number of commissions we have to make them as manageable as we can. If you don’t have your officials, […]

You have just been re-elected. What is your immediate plan for Nigerian basketball?
Without any doubt we are going to give more attention to capacity and development aspect of the game. We are going to streamline the number of commissions we have to make them as manageable as we can. If you don’t have your officials, the referees, the technical officials and everybody around the game on the same page and same level, it is always a problem. We won’t develop because the interpretation is going to be stunted. So I believe that capacity development is going to take a huge chunk of what we are going to do. The greatest thing is that this is an opportunity to move forward with every programme that we were not able to do in the last four years.
What was your major challenge in the past four years?
I would say it has been a long and difficult journey.  I don’t want to say funding because funding will always be a challenge. The greatest challenge for me is to have everyone focused and moving in the same direction. I think as the leader I know where the federation should be and I need to take the guys around me along. Sometimes the tendency in this country is to literally push and force the horse to the river but then you cannot force it to drink water. So I just honestly hope and believe that we are going to close ranks and move the game forward.
You have been having running battles with the faction led by Col. Sam Ahmedu. Your election was almost marred by protests before and during the election. What is really happening?
I am not in a position to comment on that. I was a candidate like any other person and there are competent authorities to comment on that. We have structures in this country and when people take it upon themselves that they know more than the system itself, this is what they get in exchange. We need to be humble. Even if we are knowledgeable we have to bring the knowledge to greater good of everyone. That’s my belief and what you see around shows complete disregard for the rules of the game. Look I am not in this thing to show that I am better than anybody. I am sure the leadership that I gave brought me out as somebody humble, somebody responsible, and hardworking and somebody who has a vision. Every federation needs somebody who will stand up and be counted. Personally I have sacrificed more than an individual should for Nigerian basketball. I cannot tell you lies. I do not want to despise individuals. Elections always bring these differences and difficulties. What I appeal to the media is do not give your voice to dissents. We need sponsors to understand that we are one family. We cannot all agree all the times. Families disagree. So we should not bring it out to the open and discourage sponsors. I refused to be dragged into any war of wars by anybody. I am a very busy person. Basketball is passion. We all played the game. It is not a paying game. It is free. Nobody is paying us. There must be something, an agenda that we do not know. If it is this basketball that we are doing, I don’t think people should take it to the level they have taken things. I have always avoided personalizing these things. This country belongs to all of us. I don’t have anything against anyone.
Why did the current season start late? Was it due to some of the issues you have enumerated?
Why the league started late was simple. The first four years of the sponsorship ended with the last season. There was need for re-negotiation and negotiation takes time. Moreover, it came at a point when the new financial year of the sponsor was about to start. Therefore they needed to look at their books and be sure that they wanted to renew the contract.
Gratefully, the management convinced its board that we have been accountable and we tried to run the league diligently and the standard is growing. So the delay was caused by negotiations. And let me tell you that today in Africa, there is no basketball league that is as worthy as our league. Angola was making a case for DSTV to sponsor their league. This TV window is a great opportunity.
What we should do is to try to consolidate and try to build the bridges. And I tell you this year we are bringing an international partner to support our local league and by the time they come in, the entire environment is going to be different. That was why I actually offered myself to come again because everybody is saying you need more sponsors. But I must tell you we have a great sponsor in DSTV.
Are you very satisfied with your federation’s youth development programmes? If not, what are you going to do in this regard?
In my opinion we have not been able to put our fingers squarely on the youth development programme. That’s was why we had a forum for youth coaches last year. We sat down to ask them what has been the problem. There has been so much short changing. People cheat, people reduce ages and so on. Each time you are compelled to take the national team to the age grade tournament you pick from a group that is already compromised.
We are trying to look for the solutions. We started a pilot programme in Abuja and Lagos directly with secondary schools with basketball bias. In Abuja we singled out about ten of the schools. We have given them coaches. We are using the national stadium outside courts. We have given them equipment and balls. We are going to create a small tournament for them so that we can have a small pool of pure legitimate talents that are within the ages we need to nurture them. In the next four years we can conveniently say we have the documents of these secondary school kids. We know him. He was age so so when he came and now he is this age. We know he can make the team and he been moulded in a way that he can be useful. There is no way we continue to build our teams by randomly picking from these schools. It won’t work. When it succeeds, then we expand the pilot scheme. And then the entire country will benefit. This means the zonal representatives would have to play more prominent roles.
For a long time Nigeria played the second fiddle to Angola and now it seems Senegal is also going ahead of us. How do you hope to arrest this trend?
Right now Nigeria is number 17 in the world and it tells you something is happening. Until last summer Nigeria was number 21 in the world. It is miracle that we made it four steps up. We are number 17 now. We are not stopping there. As soon as we win the African championship this year, we would shoot up. It is not going to be easy guys. The first thing I will do is to consolidate on what we started doing. It is also to tell Nigerians that it is still one united basketball family. And secondly we get on the job of getting the national team to prepare. This politics has divided us with some people making phones call, people talking to A, people talking to B. We have to know that that team does not belong to me. It does not belong to the board. It belongs to all of us.