Ekpenyong says: “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 and to do this in honour of my father means everything to me.”
By Uzor Odigbo
Two-time Nigerian basketball league most valuable player (MVP), Louis Edem Ekpenyong, is set to host an elite national basketball championship from February 7-11 2023 in honour of his father who passed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The tournament is set to feature eight premier league teams from across Nigeria competing for the grand prize of N2 million with the runners-up going home with N1 million and the tournament MVP award named after his father, Engineer Francis Ekpenyong, carting away with a N100,000 cash reward.
Edem who is now an Information Technology Engineer in Maryland, United States in high praise of his dad said the tournament was to honour father for the role he played in his life.
“He played a major role in who I am today. I dont 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 and to do this in honour of my father means everything to me,” he said.
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The one time West African university league MVP and two-time Nigeria Basketball League MVP started his professional playing career in 1998 where he debuted for Kada stars of Kaduna in the then 7-up Premier League. He later played for Jigawa Rocks in 2000, then Yelwa Hawks of Bauchi from 2001 to 2003, before joining Union Bank basketball club in 2004 till 2006 where he took his talents of the shores of Nigeria to play in international leagues across the globe.
The tournament will be hosted at the national stadium, Surulere Lagos and is expected to be engaging and richly rewarding for the basketball community in Nigeria.