Crises deepen in Sports as NBBF returns Tijani Umar

*It is charade -Minister
*We will resolve the quagmire – NOC

The crisis rocking the country’s sports industry got deepened on Monday as a parallel federation election was held in Kano.

While the Youth and Sports Ministry organised inauguration of electoral committee for the purpose of conducting elections into the various boards yesterday was on going, the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) returned its president, Tijani Umar

The electoral guidelines released by the ministry had barred federations presidents who had served two terms and above from contesting in the elections but the decision was rescinded after a stakeholders’ meeting with the minister, Solomon Dalung, in Lagos.

However, the NBBF president, still feeling unsafe in the exercise with the claim that the minister has sponsored a rival candidate, protested against the decision of the minister to force the federations to conduct the said elections.

Alhaji Umar also claimed that the electoral committee set up by the minister would not conduct a free and fair election since he is an interested party.

He argued that every machinery would be used by the committee to deliver the minister’s candidate and as such, his protests would become medicine after death.

Umar, whose tenure in the NBBF recorded huge successes ranging from the country’s victory in her first Afro Basket trophy, to securing huge sponsorship insisted that he is not afraid of elections but minister cannot be an umpire and a player.

Meanwhile, the Youth and Sports minister has described the Kano election as a charade.

A top member of the Nigeria Olympic Committee confided in XTRA TIMES that what happened in Kano will attract the attention of the international body, International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Our source who would not want his name in prints said the decision of some NBBF members to hold election in Kano has created faction in the federation but noted that NOC will bring sanity to the federation.