{"id":1170,"date":"2022-06-12T12:01:31","date_gmt":"2022-06-12T12:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/udezue-laments-nigerias-suspension-from-international-basketball-the-sun-nigeria-daily-sun\/"},"modified":"2022-06-12T12:01:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-12T12:01:31","slug":"udezue-laments-nigerias-suspension-from-international-basketball-the-sun-nigeria-daily-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/?p=1170","title":{"rendered":"Udezue laments Nigeria&#039;s suspension from international basketball \u2013 The Sun Nigeria &#8211; Daily Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"s1\">By <strong>Joe Apu<\/strong><\/span><br \/><strong><span class=\"s1\">Former D\u2019Tigers forward and Chief Executive Officer of AFA Sports, Ugo Udezue says Nigeria\u2019s self-imposed ban will have dire consequences on the country\u2019s basketball for years to come.<\/span><\/strong><br \/><span class=\"s1\">Udezue, in an open letter to stakeholders on June 8 noted that the decision of the government will rather than make any positive impact will ruin the fortunes of generations of players.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"s1\">Udezue wrote, \u201cI am a typical example of the Nigerian basketball programme. I played on the junior and national teams that offered me the exposure to travel to the USA on a basketball scholarship to complete my education at the University of Wyoming.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0\u201cI became an accomplished sports agent representing top NBA players globally. After many years abroad, I came back in 2015 and co-founded the African Basketball League, which provided the template for what is now called the BAL which is the Basketball Africa League that is now a billion-dollar business.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0\u201cWe made tremendous personal and financial sacrifices to accomplish this great feat. The same people that claim to love basketball so much were the same people that banned such a wonderful venture. These same people that now claim to have the best interest for Nigerian basketball did not raise a finger when the TJ Umar led Nigeria Basketball Federation called our sponsors and threatened them to pull sponsorships from the ABL.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI ended up owing players because of the actions of the NBBF leadership at that time. The person that saved the ABL that season was Musa Kida (current NBBF President) and I had never met him before then. He made sure we were able to pay players and finish the season because he liked what we were doing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"email-notes\">Your email address will not be published.<\/span> <span class=\"required-field-message\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Required fields are marked <span class=\"required\" aria-hidden=\"true\">*<\/span><\/span><br \/><label for=\"comment\">Comment <span class=\"required\" aria-hidden=\"true\">*<\/span><\/label> <textarea id=\"comment\" name=\"comment\" cols=\"45\" rows=\"8\"><\/textarea><br \/><label for=\"author\">Name <span class=\"required\" aria-hidden=\"true\">*<\/span><\/label> <br \/><label for=\"email\">Email <span class=\"required\" aria-hidden=\"true\">*<\/span><\/label> <br \/><label for=\"url\">Website<\/label> <br \/> <label for=\"wp-comment-cookies-consent\">Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.<\/label><br \/> <label class=\"subscribe-label\" id=\"subscribe-label\" for=\"subscribe_comments\">Notify me of follow-up comments by email.<\/label><br \/> <label class=\"subscribe-label\" id=\"subscribe-blog-label\" for=\"subscribe_blog\">Notify me of new posts by email.<\/label><\/p>\n<p><label>\u0394<textarea name=\"ak_hp_textarea\" cols=\"45\" rows=\"8\"><\/textarea><\/label>document.getElementById( &#8220;ak_js_1&#8221; ).setAttribute( &#8220;value&#8221;, ( new Date() ).getTime() );<br \/>Prophet Isaiah Wealth, founder of the Gospel Pillars International Churches and Pray Nigeria Movement, has called for&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\tFollow us on social media:                <br \/> \u00a9 2019 <a href=\"\/\/sunnewsonline.com\" title=\"The Sun Nigeria newspaper\">The Sun Nigeria<\/a> &#8211; Managed by <a href=\"http:\/\/netsera.com.ng\" title=\"Netsera\">Netsera<\/a>. <br \/>\u00a9 2019 <a href=\"\/\/sunnewsonline.com\" title=\"The Sun Nigeria newspaper\">The Sun Nigeria<\/a> &#8211; Managed by <a href=\"http:\/\/netsera.com.ng\" title=\"Netsera\">Netsera<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sunnewsonline.com\/udezue-laments-nigerias-suspension-from-international-basketball\/\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Joe ApuFormer D\u2019Tigers forward and Chief Executive Officer of AFA Sports, Ugo Udezue says Nigeria\u2019s self-imposed ban will have dire consequences on the country\u2019s basketball for years to come.Udezue, in an open letter to stakeholders on June 8 noted that the decision of the government will rather than make any positive impact will ruin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.5 (Yoast SEO v25.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Udezue laments Nigeria&#039;s suspension from international basketball \u2013 The Sun Nigeria - Daily Sun - City Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/?p=1170\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Udezue laments Nigeria&#039;s suspension from international basketball \u2013 The Sun Nigeria - Daily Sun City Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Udezue laments Nigeria&#039;s suspension from international basketball \u2013 The Sun Nigeria - Daily Sun City Watch %\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/?p=1170\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/web.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100083282987806\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-12T12:01:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/wp-header-logo-94.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"467\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/?p=1170#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/?p=1170\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Editor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citywatch.ng\/#\/schema\/person\/6f3e02bc6483df72f5abc6e9624d0cc8\"},\"headline\":\"Udezue laments Nigeria&#039;s suspension from international basketball \u2013 The Sun Nigeria &#8211; 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