Basketball in Africa

Chariot basketball club of Lagos is not leaving anything to chance in its bid to do well at the March 26 through April 4 National Division-One Championship holding in Ilorin, Kwara State.

Chariot who is one of the clubs bidding for a slot in the Division-One Championship is planning to assemble a crack team that will take Ilorin by storm and lead other would-be premier league contenders from the Atlantic conference.

Club chairman, Luka Yakubu told our correspondent that his love for the slamming and dunking game made the management of the modest Ikeja, Lagos-based outfit to want to be part of the division-one process.

We have since contracted the services of one of the best coach in the country to help tinker the team because we believe only the best is good for our team.

Chariot, one of the top Lagos City league teams trained twice daily at the popular Nigeria Police basketball court at the Police College, Ikeja.

Luka is optimistic that the club will gain promotion to the top league when the buzzer shot went off on April 4 in Ilorin.

The ex-Naval officer commended the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) for responding to the yarning of other stake-holders of the game.

I am indeed grateful to the NBBF for truly operating an open door policy as canvassed by the federation president, Tijjani Umar when he assume office last year and want to state that such spirit will yield positive result for the game in the country.

We have accept the olive branch extended to us, though we are already making plans to take the place of the Police who are already in the premier league before the NBBF gesture came and we have no doubt in our mind that this is one of the best thing to have happened to Nigeria basketball in the present dispensation.

We will justify this gesture as we aim to come out top at the end of hostility in Ilorin and gained promotion to the lucrative premier league and compete among the very best in the country because we are have been tested in several occasion in the Lagos City league where weve always held our own against the big teams in the Atlantic conference.