By Esther Egbe
The Nigeria Basketball Federation, BBBF, has announced the death of Baba Shehu, who served on the board a the North East representative, National Daily learnt.
He died after a protracted illness.
The President of the Federation, Engr Musa Kida who is in constant touch with the family of the deceased broke the news on Saturday to other board members were optimistic about his recovery National Daily gathered.
Kida wondered why Shehu had to die at a very critical time when the story of basketball in Nigeria was about to be rewritten.
“This is a huge blow for us all because the deceased was a strong personality who believed in the vision that we had embarked on since we were sworn in 2017.
“Since one of our core objectives is to focus more on grassroots development and the empowerment of zonal representatives, losing Shehu at this critical time when the administrative landscape of the NBBF was about taking shape is a tragic, sad and unfortunate occurrence.”
The Vice President of the federation, Babatunde Ogunade who described the deceased as a complete gentleman described the news as a very sad one coming few days after losing one of his friends and former Chairman of the Lagos State Sports Commission, Mr Deji Tinubu.
“I never knew that within the space of 72 hours, I would be mourning the death of two close associates. This is one death too many and I pray that God in his infinite mercy grants his soul eternal rest.”
Speaking on the sad occurrence, the international representative on the NBBF board and President of FIBA Africa Zone 3, Colonel Samuel Ahmedu said his death was unfortunate and a great loss to his family, Borno State and Nigeria basketball at large.
Until his death, the former basketball player who was a star player in Borno in the early 70s was elected the zonal representative of the North East and a member of the Borno State Basketball Association.
He has since been buried according to Islamic rite.