FIBA Basketball
NGR - Elite players stoop to festival beat
ABEOKUTA (15th National Sports Festival) - The decision of the organisers of Nigeria's 15th National Sports Festival holding in southwest Ogun State from April 6 through April 20 to allow states to field elite athletes in the 15th National Sports Festival currently
ABEOKUTA (15th National Sports Festival) - The decision of the organisers of Nigeria's 15th National Sports Festival holding in southwest Ogun State from April 6 through April 20 to allow states to field elite athletes in the 15th National Sports Festival currently holding in Ogun State has seen Premier League players stooping low to a competition aimed at developing new talent.
With almost all the states in the Games enlisting League players in their cause to win the two available gold medals in Abeokuta, it is familiar to see established internationals turning out for one state or the other at the Alake Sports Centre, venue of the basketball competition.
Although the presence of the players has enlivened the competition, there are fears that it will be difficult to tap into the ideals of the Games - the discovery of fresh talents to drive Nigeria's national sports development.
In Abia's 82-71 over Yobe State last Tuesday, Ebun Comets' Yakubu 'Jordan' Abdulrahman (Yobe) was up against a familiar foe: Harry Ezenibe of AHIP of Kano.
Both teams are in Nigeria's top flight, the Vmobile Premier League.
The two players are some of the emerging talent in the Nigerian game after their trip to top camps in Nigeria and the 2005 Top NBA 100 Camp in South Africa.
That is not all.
Edem Ekpeyong and Ejike Ugboaja, two Union Bank forwards who played for the national team - the Tigers - in the Melbourne2006 Commonwealth Games last March in Australia, turned out for Kaduna State, who were bundled out on Thursday in the preliminaries after Lagos lost to Bayelsa State.
Lagos, who have sort of perfected the art of winning the golds in basketball, recruited several Premier League players to their cause, mainly from Dodan Warriors and Lagos Islanders.
Babs Ogunade, the chairman of the Lagos State Basketball Association, says the state is exploiting the ruling by the Nigeria Basketball Federation that last year's Vmobile Challenge was not a League competition.
"We reached the technical director of the NBBF (Ahmed Adamu) and he told us that we can use the players since they played the qualifiers for us last year," Ogunade said.
Obafemi Obadare
FIBA Correspondent in Nigeria
With almost all the states in the Games enlisting League players in their cause to win the two available gold medals in Abeokuta, it is familiar to see established internationals turning out for one state or the other at the Alake Sports Centre, venue of the basketball competition.
Although the presence of the players has enlivened the competition, there are fears that it will be difficult to tap into the ideals of the Games - the discovery of fresh talents to drive Nigeria's national sports development.
In Abia's 82-71 over Yobe State last Tuesday, Ebun Comets' Yakubu 'Jordan' Abdulrahman (Yobe) was up against a familiar foe: Harry Ezenibe of AHIP of Kano.
Both teams are in Nigeria's top flight, the Vmobile Premier League.
The two players are some of the emerging talent in the Nigerian game after their trip to top camps in Nigeria and the 2005 Top NBA 100 Camp in South Africa.
That is not all.
Edem Ekpeyong and Ejike Ugboaja, two Union Bank forwards who played for the national team - the Tigers - in the Melbourne2006 Commonwealth Games last March in Australia, turned out for Kaduna State, who were bundled out on Thursday in the preliminaries after Lagos lost to Bayelsa State.
Lagos, who have sort of perfected the art of winning the golds in basketball, recruited several Premier League players to their cause, mainly from Dodan Warriors and Lagos Islanders.
Babs Ogunade, the chairman of the Lagos State Basketball Association, says the state is exploiting the ruling by the Nigeria Basketball Federation that last year's Vmobile Challenge was not a League competition.
"We reached the technical director of the NBBF (Ahmed Adamu) and he told us that we can use the players since they played the qualifiers for us last year," Ogunade said.
Obafemi Obadare
FIBA Correspondent in Nigeria