Business of the Game: Why Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi Is My Choice to Lead Nigerian Basketball

Ugo Udezue

I have seen Nigerian basketball from almost every seat in the building. I wore the green and white for the Under-18s and the national teams, played at the University of Wyoming and then professionally. I became the first Nigerian certified as an NBA agent in the United States, served as Vice President at BDA Sports Management and represented athletes for more than 17 years. Then I came home, brought the African Basketball League and the Continental Basketball League to Nigeria, and co-founded AFA Sports, the first African brand to outfit a team at the Olympic Games.

From every one of those seats, the lesson has been the same. Nigeria has never lacked talent. What it needs is an enterprise around the talent. That is why my choice to lead the NBBF is Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi.

African basketball is now an industry. Since 2021 the Basketball Africa League has contributed more than $250 million to the GDP of its host countries and supported some 37,000 jobs. The NBA projects $5.4 billion and more than 650,000 jobs by 2034. From 2027 the league moves to permanent, investor-owned franchises, sold in the tens of millions of dollars, each expected to bring a modern arena with it.

So far, that money has landed in Kigali, Dakar, Rabat and Pretoria. Rwanda has 14 million people. Nigeria has more than 220 million, half of them under 19.

And no one has our talent. The NBA opened this season with a record 135 international players, and Nigerians are among the largest African groups in the league. D’Tigress have won five consecutive AfroBasket titles and sit eighth in the world. In every state there is a 14-year-old with the frame and the hunger to play at the highest level who has never stood on a proper court.

This is also about Nigeria itself. When a Nigerian name is called on draft night, or D’Tigress lift a trophy, the world sees the best of us: gifted, disciplined, excellent. That is national image no advertising budget can buy. Rwanda has used basketball to put Kigali on the map. Nigeria holds a far stronger hand, and the time to play it is now, while the franchises, arenas and broadcast deals of the continental game are being allocated.

What the next president must build

Infrastructure. Mid-sized, multi-use arenas across the six zones, built on state land with private capital.

Governance.

Respected statutes, audited accounts, honoured contracts, calendars that hold. Capital goes where the rules are clear.

An enterprise around our leagues and national teams. They are commercial properties and should be run as such, with professional management, multi-year planning, media rights and diaspora scouting.

Digitisation of all our programmes.

One national database for every player, coach, referee and club. Every competition on a digital platform with live statistics, every game streamed, every talent tracked from the day they are scouted. Data is what sponsors, broadcasters and investors buy, and it is the simplest route to transparency.

Private equity and participation.

Government cannot fund this alone. The federation’s job is to make Nigerian basketball investable, then welcome those willing to put money into clubs, arenas and academies. I built a private professional league in this country, with sponsors, salaries and crowds. I know how much that welcome matters.

Why a proven professional

Every item on that list is an executive’s task. Dr. Abdullahi holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Manchester and, at 41, runs a federal agency as Director General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria. Budgets, audits, infrastructure, international partners and the politics of Abuja are his daily work. That is the skill the next phase of Nigerian basketball demands.

But a CV alone would not have earned my support. I have known him for more than two years, well before this election was on anyone’s calendar, and what convinced me is what I saw with my own eyes: his passion for this game, on the courts themselves, courtside and among the players. His DAM Foundation Championship brings competitive basketball to Okene every December, far from the cameras of Lagos and Abuja. You cannot fake that kind of love for the game, and players can always tell. What makes him rare is that the passion comes with discipline. He talks about basketball as a sector, and he wants to leave behind a structure, not a list of favours.

Those of us who wore the jersey belong at the heart of the game, with real authority over technical matters, national teams and youth development. A president secure enough to empower basketball people, while he builds the institution around them, is exactly what players need.

One basketball family

Above all, he can bring us together. Capital does not enter a divided house, and neither does talent. Dr. Abdullahi belongs to no camp and carries no old scores. He is accessible, he listens, and his NBBF will have room for everyone who loves this game: former internationals, state associations, coaches, referees, the diaspora, and those who contest against him next month. Nigerian basketball is too small for enemies and too big for any one group to carry alone.

On 15 October, Congress will choose who leads us through this window. I have looked at it from every seat I have ever occupied in basketball. Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi is my choice.