Odera Chidom quits D’Tigress, says NBBF ‘lacks professionalism’

Odera Chidom, the D’Tigress player, says she is quitting the Nigerian national basketball team.

In a Twitter post, Chidom said the move was due to the alleged unprofessionalism of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF).

Last week, NBBF announced open tryouts for the women’s team in Chicago, Lagos, and Abuja from July 8 to 11.

According to the federation, the tryouts were aimed at selecting a team for the forthcoming 2023 Women’s AfroBasket, billed to commence on July 28.

Commenting on the tryouts, Chidom said she would not attend it because “I have standards of how I conduct business at the professional level, and Nigeria continues to disappoint me”.

It saddens me to announce that I will no longer play for the Nigerian National Team. pic.twitter.com/Ni1CV9Kjgq

— Oderah Chidom (@Deezy_Go) July 10, 2023

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Speaking further with ESPN, the 28-year-old accused the NBBF of “lacking professionalism”, adding that she “cannot continue to have this added stress in my life”.

“The trigger for me was seeing an Instagram post of open tryouts in three different locations three weeks before Afrobasket,” Chisom said.

“I will not be attending. I don’t think that’s professional at all. I consider myself a professional. And I don’t think it’s okay for me to pay my way to try out for something when I think I have a resume that speaks for itself.

“I have standards of how I conduct business at the professional level, and Nigeria continues to disappoint me.

“This is a national team. Generally, what you do is you invite a group of professionals, and you compete in a camp, and then the 12 best at that camp get to compete on whatever team, and that is mostly how a national team is conducted.

“I was with my family when I got the message, and I just was in shock. Playing for the national team is something that my family is proud of, that I am proud of as it holds a lot of weight for me, and the way that they conduct themselves is taking all of that away from us. It’s just so disheartening.

“I have been blessed to play with a lot of teams where I have seen professionalism from management, and I don’t see those same qualities within our own federation. So to continuously keep coming back to a federation that I feel does not value me is not worth it.

“I am officially done with the national team. I cannot continue to have this added stress in my life. As a team, we try to choose our words very carefully so we do not offend anyone in the federation.

“But personally, I’m done, and my purpose of doing this is to shed light on the lack of professionalism within the federation and that it needs to change.

“It’s really difficult to not have any sense of communication, not have any sense of professionalism. All of our information comes from Twitter and social media.

“We never know what’s going on. We ask a lot of questions about just simple things, of when camp is, where it will be held, and who the coaches are, and we get responses like ‘please be patient’.

“Everything that we do is super last minute. The level of professionalism is just not up to par with the constant production that we produce.”

SOME D’TIGRESS PLAYERS ARE DISAPPOINTED WITH NBBF

Chidom said some of her colleagues are disappointed in the call for tryouts.

She added that there is a “general sense of frustration” in the team, adding that more boycotts could be announced.

“A lot of us have all sent the post around. And pretty much all of us are disappointed and upset with the lack of communication,” Chisom said.

“I genuinely don’t know what the other girls are intending to do, but I know that there’s a general sense of frustration and disappointment throughout the entire team, considering that no one has spoken to us.”

Meanwhile, the NBBF recently appointed Rena Wakama, a former D’Tigress player, as the team’s new coach.

Wakama replaced Otis Hughley, who exited last year.

GENESIS OF NBBF, D’TIGRESS CRISIS

In 2022, Sunday Dare, the former minister of sports, announced the withdrawal of Nigeria from international basketball competitions for two years.

According to Dare, the decision was to address the power tussle within the NBBF, which at the time had two different presidents to run its affairs.

The ban affected D’Tigress’ participation in the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup. The competition organisers thereafter replaced the team with Senegals.

Prior to the ban, D’Tigress had protested the non-payment of allowances in 2021. The players complained that they were not being appreciated by NBBF and the sports ministry.