Zeke Nnaji, power forward and occasional centre with the NBA champions Denver Nuggets, is super determined to give back to the community in which his Nigerian father, Afam, grew up. This was the motivation behind establishing the Nnaji Family Foundation in Enugu, southeastern Nigeria.
The foundation built an ultramodern basketball facility three years ago in Agbani on the outskirts of Enugu, with the goal “to invest in young people throughout Nigeria. By giving them access to high quality basketball facilities as well as education and life skills without any cost to them and their families”.
Nnaji said at the time: “Giving back is something that’s very important to me. I’m excited to share that my foundation, Nnaji Family Foundation, is going to be building basketball courts as well as academic centres in Nigeria”. This commitment to growing basketball from the grassroots and combining this with academics has led to a collaboration between the Foundation and the College of Immaculate Conception (CIC), a few miles down the road from Agbani.
Giving back is something that’s very important to me. I’m Excited to share that my foundation (@NnajiFamily ), is going to be building basketball courts as well as academic centers in Nigeria. Here are some visuals for one of the facilities pic.twitter.com/yQIq6oC1Ks
— Zeke Nnaji (@ZekeNnaji_Hoopz) February 26, 2021
CIC has also witnessed in a massive way the spirit of giving back, with old boys of the school leading a remarkable transformation that has included gifting the school with a $2m multi sports centre. The sports centre includes a first-rate indoor basketball arena, which the Nnaji Foundation is using, alongside their facility in Agbani, to run a state-wide basketball tournament for secondary school children.
College of the Immaculate Conception (CIC) Enugu reshaping the education narrative in Nigeria
The foundation held an interschool basketball knockout event and basketball clinic at the CIC basketball court yesterday, with coaches from the foundation teaching the aspiring athletes the fundamentals of the game and the young players honing their skills.
Val Ozoigbo, the president of the CIC old boys association and a medical doctor based in Memphis, Tennessee, described the collaboration between the Nnaji Family Foundation and CIC as “the beginning of a mutual understanding and benefit being drawn out between us and the foundation”.
Plans are in advanced stages for Zeke Nnaji to run coaching clinics at both the family’s foundation and CIC, and for the secondary school tournament to partner with NBA Africa. Incidentally, Nigeria’s greatest ever basketball player, Hakeem “the Dream” Olajuwon, who made his name winning championships with the Houston Rockets, first played basketball as a 15 year old secondary school student during a youth tournament in Lagos. A friend of the coach at the University of Houston saw him play and Olajuwon was invited to Houston for trials. The rest, as they say, is history.
If the partnership between the Nnaji Family Foundation and CIC Enugu leads to another Olajuwon, it would be worth every penny invested in the Foundation and the multi-sports centre at CIC. The dreams of those boys at the CIC basketball court can come true – as Olajuwon proved.
