Over 1300 students have been trained through the Power Forward basketball programme including 900
direct beneficiaries and 400 peer influencers from 30 schools in Abuja to date.
The NBA Director Operations for Africa, Franck Traore, remarked that the organisers had succeeded
through the alumnus programme in monitoring some of the products of the programme, who are now in
tertiary institutions.
“We have alumni players and some of them are already in universities. They always want to come back
because we find them useful to instill whatever they learned in the programme to other young people.
They are useful in raising awareness at the community to the threat of Malaria,” Traore said.
The Power Forward program was inaugurated in Abuja on November 19, 2013 with a Tip-Off event featuring
NBA and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) representatives, Nigerian policymakers and
influential personalities.
A number of NBA and WNBA players and legends have participated in the program since inception including
Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, former NBA players Obinna Ekezie (current CEO of Wakanow), Olumide
Oyedeji, Kelenna Azubuike and Jerome Williams, WNBA’s Chiney Ogwumike of the Connecticut Sun, Evelyn
Akhator of Dallas Wings and former WNBA player Mactabene Amachree.
Power Forward is also part of the NBA’s Jr. NBA initiative – during the 2017-18 season, the Jr. NBA
reached more than 26 million youth in 71 countries through a variety of camps, clinics, skills
challenges, league play and outreach events.