All is now set for the commencement of this year’s Nestle Milo Secondary School Basketball Championship as hostilities serves off on Wednesday, April 22 with matches in the Confluence Conference holding in Lokoja, Kogi State and end on Wednesday, April 29.
According to the organisers, Nigeria School Sport Federation (NSSF) in conjunction with the National Collegiate Sports Foundation (NCSF), winners from Adamawa, Borno, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara will slug it out in Lokoja for the Conference champions in both the boys and girls categories.
It will be turn of the Atlantic Conference from Thursday, April 30 to Wednesday, May 6 with matches taking place in Benin, Edo State.
Participating states are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Rivers and Imo. Action will shift to the Central Conference from Thursday, May 7 to Wednesday, May 13 with centre at Akure with the following participating states in attendance: Bauchi, Benue, Gombe, Kaduna, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ondo and Plateau.
Western Conference will hold its matches in Ibadan from Thursday, May 14 to Wednesday, May 20 with the participating states: Anambra, Delta, Ekiti, FCT Abuja, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Osun and Oyo.
At each of the Conferences, the first placed teams in both the boys and girls categories will go home with the championship trophies and various amounts of cash rewards for the development of sports facilities in their respective schools.
President of the NSSF, Mallam Ibrahim Muhammad said judging from past editions and the readiness of the state champions, they expect to witness great effort and determination alongside frills and thrills to be displayed by the future champions at the Conferences’ making it survival of the fitness.
Meanwhile, the national finals will come up from June 1 to 6 at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos with Saturday, June 6 being the grand finale.
Every team participating in the national finals will receive N200, 000. Winners will go home with additional N150, 000 for first place, while the second and third placed teams will receive N120, 000 and N100, 000 respectively. They will also receive trophies, Milo goodies and lots of Milo to drink.
