BY JOE APU
The name Sam Ahmedu rings out loud in sports and particularly in the basketball community both at home and abroad. He is one many love to hate for his opinion on issues concerning the development of basketball in Nigeria, FIBA Africa Zone 3 and indeed Africa.
While he enjoys a large followership of the young and old who adore him for his contributions to the game of basketball, he also enjoys ernomous hatred from another section of the society but he says it is only natural.
Ahmedu recently went down memory lane with Sunday Sunsports and recalls how the game has played out on his life and importantly saving him from drugs and gangs as a growing child in the Obalende area of Lagos State, Nigeria.
The retired Colonel of the Nigerian Army who is currently the President, FIBA Africa Zone 3 and also a member of the FIBA Africa Central Board is quick to reveal that peer influences has strong inpact on the growth of a child.
“I grew up in the Obalende area and for specifics Dodan Barracks. As a young boy, I was very troublesome and would always sneak out to play football, go swimming and watch the big boys play tennis at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club. When there are matches at the Onikan Stadium, I climbed trees to catch a glimpse without my father’s permission. When basketball was introduced in Dodan Barracks, I would always go there to pick balls and seeing how others played really excited me.
“The game became so interesting for me that I would always stay on the court till late. Food did not matter to me and wheneverI come back late, I won’t escape my father’s strokes of the cane. To avoid being caned I would most times climb a tree and sleep. But aside thes trokes of cane that I often recieved for dodging house chores to go and play basketball, I found out later in life that it saved me from a whole lot of juvinile delienqencies. There were times my friends would rather go drinking and smoking after school that I found myself playing basketball. The game saved my from drugs and gangs.”
He noted that on many other occasions basketball had proved to be his saving grace. “Basketball played a role in my marriage, school and my career in the Army. I was always on the move with basketball and many of my superiors knew me through my involvement in the game. Through basketball, I went to the Ahmadu Bello University and was a part of the World University Games team in which Nigeria participated.
“I remember that I missed my flight on the ill fated Charlie 130 that crashed at Ejigbo. I was to have been on that flight but could not make it because I was in a meeting of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF and by the time the meeting was over I had missed the flight. It was later in the day that I learnt that the plan had crashed and my mate whom I was to be on the flight with had died in the crash. My mate (Gen. Tunde Ogbeha’s junior brother) and I had agreed to join the flight to Kaduna and from there we hit Minna. The crash left me in shock and the journey to Minna had to be done by road.”
He recalls that his passion and love for the game made him to form the Dodan Warriors Basketball Programme that saw the emergence of the Dodan Warriors Basketball Club, the Warriors Academy, Warriors Cadets and the Amazons.
“The idea to set up the Dodan Warriors Basketball Programme came up in 1994 and I saw it as a way of giving back to the sport that has given me so much. I did it to engage the children from the barracks and the environs of Ikoyi and Obalende. Today, I can look back to say confidently that I am proud of the products that have come out of the programme. My players and coaches abound in the DStv sponsored Premier Basketball League today with different clubs and when I see them, I am grateful to God for the vision.”
On how he avoided been part of coups while in service, Ahmedu said he remains grateful to the game because many of his colleagues never took him serious because of sports.
from The Sun News http://ift.tt/1QFWP9d
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