Veteran basketball enthusiast, Col. Sam Ahmedu, on Tuesday, said that he would drive the leadership of the FIBA Zone 3 fervently for more success.
Nigeria’s retired Col. Sam Ahmedu was recently re-elected for another four-year mandate as president by the General Assembly of FIBA Africa Zone 3.
The Zone comprises of Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria and Togo.
The election held at the Sheraton Hotel in Bamako, Mali on June 21, where Ahmedu was elected by a thunderous acclamation as he was the only candidate for the position.
An elated Ahmedu told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that he was excited about the development and promised to give his best and wealth of experience to move the zone forward.
“One of my targets for this next four years is to work tenaciously with the national federations to see more participation in the zone three 3.
“We will also be guiding them through areas of sponsorship because what we have right now is very erratic and it is not helping to develop the sport.
“We know we cannot enter their countries and go about canvassing for sponsorship deals for them, but we can educate and push them in the right directions,” Ahmedu said.
Ahmedu said that FIBA had outlined every year’s events in their calendars and it is its responsibility to guide the national federations on timely organised competitions.
“We have our outlined fixtures for events for the youths, elite leagues, clinics for coaches and technical/table officials.
“We are going to work hand in hand with the national federations to see that we have a calendar that can serve the purpose of all.
“One of the purpose of this calendar is the FIBA Africa Champions League competition which comes up in October where every other participating team must be ready before then.
“A situation where some countries have yet to round up their leagues to present their champions may end up eluding them for the elite champions league,” he said.
However, in spite of all the challenges facing the zone, Ahmedu said it still ranked higher than any other zone at the level of organising competitions.
“In spite of the challenges we are faced with, we still rank higher than any other zone in Africa, and we can still do better than where we are right now,” he said.
NAN
