Revealed! Kano election: NBBF acted on NOC’s advice

More revelations are trailing the crises engulfing the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) that led to the body conducting a parallel election into its board.

Extra Time gathered exclusively that some members of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) had earlier encouraged the Tijani Umar-led board to go on with their plan to conduct their own election.

Our impeccable sources disclosed that those NOC members in sympathy with Umar who as incumbent President was a victim of the earlier guidelines released by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to prevent those who have served two terms from contesting, supported him to contest.

According to our sources, the plot by the Umar-led board to conduct its elections outside Abuja and a day earlier than the stipulated date by the minister was agreed on between him and those NOC members after a crucial meeting in Lagos.

We also gathered from our sources that the contributions made by Umar as a Vice President of NPC and President of NBBF was what drew the sympathy of some NOC members to him.

“The Kano election was not conducted in isolation. Tijani Umar has some NOC members on his side and they encouraged him to conduct his own election. That is why he went ahead to conduct election into the board of NBBF.

“We learnt further that the secret conduct of the factional election in a hotel in Abuja by the ministry was on the advice of some NOC top shots,” our source said.

The source further argued that the Sports Minister has made a grave mistake by allowing factions in the NBBF, noting that if nothing is done fast to broker peace in the federation, the sport will be heading to oblivion.

Meanwhile, a member of the NOC who pleaded anonymity told Extra Time that this crisis in NBBF will put pressure on the NOC as the international body, FIBA, will bombard them with questions on what led to this and if FIBA is not convinced, the action may attract sanctions to the country.
He however assured that NOC would do its best to bring everybody to the roundtable and broker peace.