Eight teams to battle in Louis Edem invitational basketball event

Two-time Nigerian basketball league Most Valuable Player, Louis Edem Ekpenyong, has concluded plans to host an elite national basketball championship between February 7 and 11, 2023. The event will hold at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.

The basketball tourney, according to Ekpenyong, is being put together to honour his father, who died during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The tournament will feature eight Premier league teams from across Nigeria. They will vie for the grand prize of N2 million with the runners-up going home with N1 million. The tournament’s MVP award, which is named after Engineer Francis Ekpenyong, will pocket N100,000 cash.

Ekpenyong, an Information Technology Engineer in Maryland, United States, praised his late father for supporting his basketball career. “He made me who I am today. I don’t pay tithes to any church, so, this is my tithe. I am giving back to the basketball community, which I love and care about so much. I want to do this in honor of my father, because he was everything to me,” he said.

Ekpenyong, one-time West African University League MVP, and two-time Nigeria Basketball League MVP, started his professional career in 1998, when he debuted for Kada Stars of Kaduna in the then 7up Premier League.

He later played for Jigawa Rocks in 2000, the then Yelwa Hawks of Bauchi between 2001 and 2003, before featuring for Union Bank Basketball Club between 2004 and 2006. He later jetted out of Nigeria to play international basketball.

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