Babatunde Ogunade, vice president of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has applauded organisers of ”Power Forward”, a grassroots basketball competition for secondary schools in the FCT, for the initiative.
Ogunade disclosed this during the closing ceremony of the competition in Abuja that grassroots development of basketball is necessary for the game’s growth in Nigeria.
ExxonMobil, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Africare, an international NGO, have been partnering to keep the ‘Power Forward’ programme on since November 2013.
“It is to develop skills and raise health awareness among high school youths.
”The current board of NBBF is happy to be interfacing with any organisation or individual that is contributing to the development of basketball at the grassroots.
“ExxonMobil, Africare and NBA, the baskball premiership league in the U.S., are doing a good job. We will work with anybody that has interest in basketball.
”We are happy to be interfacing with them for developing basketball at the grassroots,” Kida said.
Also speaking, Nigel Cookey-Gam, the Manager, Government and Business Development Relations. ExxonMobil, said the programme has achieved a lot.
“At ExxonMobil, we are passionate about youth development and advocacy and `Power Forward’ is one of the vehicles through which we are achieving that objective.
“This year alone, 30 students each from 10 secondary schools are directly involved and we are going to do more in subsequent editions.
“Student participants are privileged to interact with NBA stars, which in a way boost their morale to do well in the game with the aim of getting to the top of their career,” he said.
Cookey-Gam said the programme was also about reaching out to the youths.
Similarly, Dorothy Orode, Country Director, Africare, was highly impressed.
“We are more than impressed with the turnout at this (fourth) edition of the programme as we have made an impact on 600 school children from 20 schools in the territory.
“We also organise health talk and free malaria test for all the students and guests, with mosquito nets to protect people from malaria.
“It has started yielding results as parents and students’ participation has tremendously improved in this edition, compared to the last edition.
Schools that participated in the event are: Model Secondary School, Maitama; Rahinna Model School, Jikwoyi; and Raberto Schools, Wuse II.
The rest include Government Secondary School, Mabushi and Government Secondary School, Lugbe, among others.
Anthony Nlebem with wire reports
