By Samuel Akpan
With over 60 percent of Nigeria’s 230 million population under the age of 30, Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) Director-General, Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi, is advocating for an intentional national basketball policy rooted in grassroots community courts.
Speaking to PerSecondNews on Wednesday, Dr. Abdullahi emphasized that developing youth through sports is a critical national duty rather than a mere pastime
“This is a responsibility I have carried for years, not a hobby,” Abdullahi said. His bond with the game, he stressed, began on the court in Kano long before public office.
“My link to basketball did not begin with public office. It began on the court, with the belief that the game’s future is laid at the foundation,” he told our correspondent as he pins many national-team headaches on that weak base.
“If young players have no working courts, no contests, no mentors and no room to grow, we lose them before they flower.
“The same brief drives the DAM Foundation’s annual basketball championship in Okene, Kogi State, every December, a hoop meet that has grown into a youth, talent and community platform, with Davido and well-known comedians pulling national attention to the grassroots.
“Basketball is the engine, but the point is bigger than the scoreboard,” Abdullahi said. Off the hardwood, the Foundation has stretched into medical aid, scholarships, business grants, job links and personal support.
“Help them clear the walls that stop them from becoming productive,” he said.
In Abuja, his commitment to the Great Vibes Basketball Foundation extends far beyond supplying kits and funding travel—he actively takes an interest in the players’ personal well-being and helps ease their private burdens.
“You develop the athlete only when you also develop the person inside the jersey,” he said. “Millions of our young people have the gift. What they lack is the platform.”
“We are not here only to mint better players or lift trophies,” Abdullahi added. “We use the game’s pull and its power to unite, so young Nigerians can believe in themselves.”
That record, he noted, predates his rise at the Energy Commission; office widened the stage, but the basketball bond still rests on years of play and base-level work.
“Nigeria will not build the next era of basketball only in elite halls. It will be built on community courts and in local cups, where a child is first seen,” he said.
PerSecondNews reports that his creed stays short: “catch them young, give them the platform, nurse the talent and open a road to something greater.”
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