Stanley Gumut, a Nigeria Custom Service, (NCS), basketball player, was on Saturday elected as the athletes’ representative on the board of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF).
The election, held at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, Gumut won the polls with 25 votes against his opponent, Yakubu Muhammed, who won only 12 votes out of the 37 registered voters.
Gumut, who was a player on the national team, D’Tigers, told Journalists after he was declared winner of the election that, “The players’ voices was heard and they selected who they believed can lead them to where they want to take basketball. This is what they selected and they selected who they believed in.
” I am not promising on what I can’t do, but I will start with the truth, everything has to change, starting from who can improve the domestic players,” he said
Gumut, who was also the former captain of Mark Mentors Basketball Club, added that the most important thing was to revive the domestic game, especially the league.
“Opportunity should be given to home-based players to be part of the National team, if you only engage foreign players how do you expect home-based players to grow?
“We will look at what is good for the player and we will look at the tournament that is not going well and in the same one voice we have spoken today, try to see to the development of the game in the country,” he said.
Gumut said the best way was to discuss with the leadership of the Federation in case there were any abnormalities to address.
NAN reports that Scott Nnaji was also elected the Technical Representative on the board having won 19 votes against Ugor Dauda, his opponent, who trailed with 18 votes out of the 37 registered voters.
He was the Former national team Coach and presently the coach of NCS basketball.
” I am happy to have been chosen and elected as a Technical representative. I thank God for that because it had been hard work all through, we have been trying to see that we achieve this.
“We will work with other members of boards to see how we can join heads together improve more”, he said. (NAN)