The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), has congratulated the Nigerian national women basketball team, D’Tigress, on their emphatic victory over rivals DR. Congo, in their opening group match played on Friday in Kigali, Rwanda in the opening game of the 2023 Afrobasketball Championship.
This sweet victory extended the Nigerian ladies’ unbeaten run on the African continent for over six years running.
The NBBF in its congratulatory urged the very youthful team to keep up the momentum and try to defend their title, which they have now won for three consecutive time, under the able leadership of Engr Ahmadu Musa Kida.
It could be recalled that before the team departed for Kigali, the D’Tigress, got a very pleasant surprise visit to their training camp, by Alhaji Ismaila Abubakar, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry Youth and Sports Development, a day before their departure, in the company of other top ministry officials and the NBBF President, Engr Musa Kida, where a visibly elated Alhaji Abubakar urged the team to represent Nigeria with confidence and total patriotism to fatherland.
He noted that the Ministry is indeed, very happy with the rebuilding process that the NBBF has now started, and assured them that Nigerians will be solidly behind them.
He added that the Engr Musa Kida led NBBF has the full backing of the Ministry and are full of praise for Engr Musa Kida for his unmatched efforts at ensuring that funds are raised to ensure that the NBBF continues to honour and participate in all of their programmes.
He assured the team that the Ministry will intensify efforts to secure presidential approval and release of the funds required to successfully participate in the championships. Noting that the huge efforts of Engr Mysa Kida over the past 5 years have not gone unnoticed.
It could be recalled that the D’Tigress’ dominant performance on the continent and indeed globally saw them rise to the top of global rankings in basketball, where they were amongst the very best in the world. The unfortunate events that unfolded after their championship win in Cameroun, saw a total undoing of all that was achieved over the last 4 years, which was quite regrettable, to say the least. NBBF is grateful that normalcy has gradually, but surely, returned to the Federation.
The NBBF, under the able leadership of Engr. Musa Kida, is quite determined to rebuild confidence in the team as a whole, and a total reorientation of the team’s psyche and patriotism with understanding of how things work in government.
Riding high on the total vote of confidence that the Ministry reposed in Engr Musa Kida and his board, Engr Kida rose to the occasion, as usual, and ensured that the team got the best possible preparations, funding and also departed early for the championships in Kigali, Rwanda.
On his part, Kida charged the players to put the ugly past behind them and do Nigeria proud, by being very good ambassadors of the country, while noting that the NBBF is trying hard to stabilize and return back to normalcy after a very turbulent and distractive period.
Kida thanked the Permanent Secretary for his encouraging words to the team and the vote of confidence passed on him and his board, and assured that the NBBF will definitely regroup and put its past behind and house in order, as well as, return to its unmatched glorious years of 2017 to 2021. Adding that all stakeholders must have realized that not all information being fed the teams are genuine, and that a lot of fake news fly all over the places, which should be ignored.
Kida and the new D’Tigress coach, Rena Wakama, urged Nigerians to stand behind the new team, with a promise to keep injecting discovered talented Nigerians from all over the world in order to build a very formidable team that will rise to top of Africa, and indeed the world, again.
