Just like the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), which got enmeshed in controversy ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Nigerian basketball scene faces tumult weeks before the 28th edition of the AfroBasket slated to start on Friday, July 28, 2023 with Nigeria facing Congo DR.
A member of the Nigerian National Team, Oderah Chidom announced her departure from the team, five time AfroBasket Champions on Monday, July 10, 2023, in what she termed “unprofessionalism”
In a chat with Colin Udoh, the 27-year-old voiced her disapproval and disappointment with how the affairs of the team were being conducted.
“The trigger for me was seeing an Instagram post of open tryouts in three different locations three weeks before AfroBasket, I will not be attending.”
The NBBF on Saturday, July 1, 2023 announced open tryouts for all women’s Basketball players, to stand the chance to represent Nigeria at the upcoming AfroBasket in Kigali, 27 days before the Tournament, a move Chidom objected to.
“I don’t think that’s professional at all. I consider myself a professional. And I don’t think it’s okay for me to pay my way to try out for something when I think I have a resume that speaks for itself.”
“I have standards of how I conduct business at the professional level, and Nigeria continues to disappoint me.”
“This is a national team. Generally, what you do is you invite a group of professionals and you compete in a camp and then the 12 best at that camp get to compete on whatever team and that’s mostly how a national team is conducted.”
“I was with my family when I got the message and I just was in shock. Playing for the national team is something that my family is proud of, that I am proud of as it holds a lot of weight for me, and the way that they conduct themselves is taking all of that away from us. It’s just so disheartening.
“I have been blessed to play with a lot of teams where I have seen professionalism from management, and I don’t see those same qualities within our own federation. So to continuously keep coming back to to a federation that I feel does not value me is not worth it.
“I am officially done with national team. I cannot continue to have this added stress in my life. As a team, we try to choose our words very carefully so we do not offend anyone on the federation.
“But personally, I’m done and my purpose of doing this is to shed light on the lack of professionalism within the federation and that it needs to change.
“It’s really difficult to not have any sense of communication, not have any sense of professionalism. All of our information comes from Twitter and social media.
“We never know what’s going on. We ask a lot of questions about just simple things of when camp is, where it will be held, who are the coaches, and we get responses like ‘please be patient’.
“Everything that we do is super last minute. The level of professionalism is just not up to par with the constant production that we produce.”
Defending the national team open tryouts, however, NBBF President, Musa Kida said that it is nothing new.
“We did the same thing in 2017 and we raised a team that went on to win the AfroBasket in 2019,
“Not everybody will like the idea, but we are trying to make the best decisions for Nigerian basketball. We have a new coach and we want to rebuild the team.
“Of course, we would like to see all the players show up, but we can’t force anyone to do so, and it is up to each player to make the decision that is best for them.”
The NBBF on Friday, 30 June, 2023, announced Okrika, Rivers State born Rena Wakama as the new Head Coach. Prior to this she was Assistant Coach at Manhattan College in the United States.
Nigeria have won the last three editions of the Women’s AfroBasket and will seek a fourth title in Kigali, Rwanda.
The D’Tigress would also be on the lookout for Olympic qualification as the two finalists from the AfroBasket will qualify for FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament (WOQT) taking place in February 2024.
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