Nigeria Customs basketball player, Stanley Gumut has emerged as the players’ representative on the board of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).
The former captain of a Nigerian club side Mark defeated his only opponent Yakubu Usman 25-12 to emerge victorious after a keenly contested sports federation election in their election conducted inside the Indoor Hall of the MKO Abiola Stadium.
The election earlier scheduled to hold on Friday was postponed by one day as the players rejected the imposition of Usman on them as their representative, claiming that he was now a coach and had stopped playing over four years ago.
Gumut said after the victory that, “I’m overwhelmed because of the massive support for me. We had to mobilise the players to stop the imposition of a coach on them,” he said.
It will be noted that the players rejected had earlier in the day rejected the candidacy of a coach who claimed to be a player.
“An old man cannot represent us in the guise of a coach/player,” one of them shouted.
“Come outside, come outside,” the players chanted.
Meanwhile, Scott Nnaji, coach of the Customs Basketball Club of Lagos has defeated Coach Ogoh Odaudu of Royal Hoopers Basketball Club of Port Harcourt by 19 votes to 18 in a keenly contested election to pick the representative of the technical officials on the NBBF Board.
