Nigeria must give local basketball players a chance – Abdulrahman

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Former D’Tigers coach, Abdulrahman Mohammed, says Nigeria must give local basketball players a chance to develop the domestic league and grassroots talent. Read More:…

Former D’Tigers coach, Abdulrahman Mohammed, talks about the Women’s BAL, the new NBBF leadership’s grassroots promise, the foreign coach debate and more in this interview with PETER AKINBO

One of the new NBBF president (Mustapha Abdullahi)’s promises is a grassroots-first approach. For a long time, our basketball has been heavily dependent on the United States, with players, coaches and tournaments all based there, while the domestic league has been neglected. What do you make of this?

We are going to give him a chance, and hopefully he will do the right thing, and grassroots and domestic basketball, the domestic league, will pick up at both ends, male and female.

Now that the new president is talking about grassroots first, are the stakeholders ready?

I am a domestic player. How do you think I got that opportunity? I played in the local league. I had a few stints outside the country, a couple of months here and there, but I played basketball mainly here, and I coach at the domestic level here. So the coaches are there, the players are there. It is just the framework, the structure, that needs to be put in place so that we can follow it. It will not take much time. It is just the will for somebody to come and say, “This is how I want it done,” and it will be done. We are in Nigeria. We are able to establish a structure in the US, bringing players from there and everything. We can do it in Nigeria because it is within us.

I do not think it will be a challenge. It will not take much time, trust me. We just need to have patience, because Nigerians lack patience. You just need to give somebody time, because once we start doing it differently and the results are not coming, everybody gets impatient and says maybe we should go back to the status quo. But with patience, I think we will get there.

It is a great initiative, and let me be honest with you: with Chiney (Chinenye Ogwumike) being involved in the programme, the future of our female basketball is great.

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