Operations Manager of a Miracle

The Architecture of a Repatriate

When you meet a man who has been called the “Father of Nigerian Basketball,” a man who has spent over 50 years—the vast majority of his life—on this soil, you expect the legend to hit you first. You expect the stories of a young American who looked at Nigeria in the 60s and didn’t see a “project,” but a home. Oliver Berdeen Johnson didn’t just move here; he was reborn here, taking on names like Babatunde, Bala, and Bassey—west, north and south—as if to anchor himself to every corner of the map.

But for me, it wasn’t the legend that arrived first. It was the weight of the infrastructure of his life.

Today I am thinking about how I met him.

It wasn’t dramatic; there was no cinematic shift in the atmosphere, no thunderclap over the dusty plains of Zaria. It was more like a frequency I started to pick up on—a name that kept vibrating in the background of every meaningful conversation about Nigerian excellence. If you spend enough time in the rooms where things are being built, you start to feel the pulse.

Coach. OBJ. Oliver Berdeen Johnson.

At first, it was just a pattern. As an operations manager, I was biologically wired to see patterns before I understood the data. I noticed how people spoke his name with a specific kind of breath—a mixture of reverence and historical weight. I was already restless, trying to build systems for things in Nigeria that are often “held” but never “honored.” We are a country of undocumented treasures, a land where history is lived intensely but recorded sparsely. I was looking for a way to bridge the gap between existence and record. I was looking for a way to make the intangible, tangible.

So, I followed the story. When I got my residency, it was for three months, but the first day I arrived at the house, I walked into a space that felt less like a residence and more like a living archive. 

I saw the stacks of documents from Basketball for Peace (BB4P), the organization he founded in 2003. I saw the records of leagues that stretched from the courts of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria to the high-stakes environments of Lagos. I saw the names of thousands of youths who, for over five decades, found a safe space because this man decided that a ball and a hoop were better tools for peace than any political manifesto.

But then, tucked away from the trophies and the Fédération Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) Africa Career Achievement Awards, I saw the other side of the man. The private discipline. The dedication to learning, the community in basketball built over 40 years. The collection of art and culture. It wasn’t “curated” for an audience. It wasn’t trying to be seen. In my world, we call that “integrity of state.” It sat there with the quiet confidence of objects that know their own value. These were not passive acquisitions. They were honest representations of a double life in basketball and the arts, of craft and the things he enjoyed, of history, the life he has lived, and basketball, in the persistence of its culture.

I remember the first time I actually looked at them. I had been asked to write up a museum accession taking inventory before deciding what direction to go with the pieces – what are we exhibiting, what are we selling, how do we activate and max out 40 years of collecting?

My eyes landed on a set of ceramic vessels. They were brownish-black, sturdy, and bore a distinctive glaze that seemed to absorb the light of the room.

I leaned in. Inscribed on the clay were the words: “FOR THE JOHNSONS.”

These were original Ladi Kwali pottery pieces. Acquired directly from the workshop in the early 1980s. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. In the early 80s, Abuja was still Suleja. The woman on our twenty-naira note was still molding clay with her own hands, breathing life into Gbagyi tradition. And here they were, six objects—jars, bowls with lids, and a cup—held in the hands of a man who had come from America to become a “Nigerian original.”

My brain started firing at a thousand miles an hour. Accession Number: 2026.1. Object 2026.1.1—Largest Jar (Three Handles), Height: 14 cm. Condition: Sturdy. Treatment: Dust cleaning only. I realized at that moment that collecting at this level is not a hobby. It was a competitive sport. It required the same strategic stamina Coach used on the court—the willingness to wait, the eye for the “play,” and the understanding that you are building a record, not just a personal treasury.

The Physics of Trust

There is a peculiar intimacy that comes with being an operations manager for a legacy. You are the one who touches the things that haven’t been touched in decades. The one who realizes that a Benin bronze isn’t just a piece of metal; it’s a political statement about metallurgical sophistication that existed long before the world acknowledged it.

It was full circle moment from my research on metal works, jewelry and the art of recycling. I enjoy it when my research comes full circle. I can always find a thread between what I have done before and where I am heading now. 

I remember a day we spent just cleaning, buffing shine into furniture surfaces, and Coach’s collection. The dust on that wood had its own timeline. It had settled there while Coach was winning the A.B.U. Vice Chancellor’s Merit Award, while he was navigating the complexities of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), and while he was mentoring young players in high-risk areas to reduce violence. There was little time to clean objects, life moved too fast for the 87 year old man. 

When we finally cleared it, and the grain of the wood caught the light for the first time in years, Coach just whispered, “Wow.”

He said it over and over. “Wow.”

I stood there with a microfiber cloth in my hand, feeling like I’d just performed a successful surgery. Stripping down the dirt from a surface that hadn’t been cleaned in more than five years,glowing as I sprayed that windowlene across those surfaces. I cleaned like I didn’t in my own home. It felt good to be able to do something for someone, and not feel like a nanny.  It wasn’t about the table. It was about trust. He was letting me touch the physical evidence of his time on earth. He was letting me, a girl born sixty-one years after him, a proper gen-z with a clipboard, an unhealthy love of basketball nd a penchant for systems, prepare his private life—the life of a “Repatriate” who chose Babatunde, Bala, and Bassey as his middle names—to enter the public record.

People always ask me about the “bottom line.” They want to know the market value, the insurance premiums, and the “worth.” And I get it—that’s the language of the world. But if you start with the money, you miss the miracle.

You miss the fact that this collection survived the move from Zaria to Kaduna to Abuja. You miss the fact that Basketball for Peace has expanded into 16 regions nationwide despite the logistical nightmares of the last two decades. You miss the fact that this man gave hope to “hopeless African youths” who, as the stories go, might have ended up in prison if not for the “Man of Peace.”

My work is to make sure the world sees both sides of the coin. The public legend and the private collector. This is the heart of The Collector’s Game.

On 28 January 2026, my company Factories of The World, an independent research and production platform based at the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Kaduna curated an interdepartmental exhibition at the Kashim Ibrahim Library, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The event brought together faculty and students from the Departments of English & Literary Studies, Literature, Archaeology, and History around a display of original pottery by Dr. Ladi Kwali one of Nigeria’s most significant ceramic artists and Benin bronze sculptures from OBJ’s private collection.Four university departments collaborated across a single event. 

The Head of Archaeology at ABU, the Kashim Ibrahim Library administration, and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments all provided formal endorsements. The exhibition produced a documented, replicable curatorial model and it was the first time this configuration of objects had been presented in this academic context.

What it demonstrated is that when artefacts from a private collection are placed in dialogue with the right institutional setting and curatorial framing, they generate a quality of engagement that neither the institution nor the objects could produce independently. That is the model The Collector’s Game now extends to three venues and a national audience.

We have already completed our first showing in Zaria, it was surreal collaborating with my university, The sweetness of the at official letter, that is how I etch my name is history, by working with organisations that would help me create a legacy of my own. It was a homecoming of sorts, a moment where the roots of this project finally broke the surface. But we are not resting. The project is becoming something far more ambitious than I ever imagined.

Right now, we are working tirelessly to prepare for our next showing in Kaduna. It is scheduled for International Museum Day, and we are hosting it right at our studio. It feels right—honoring the global tradition of preservation within the very space where we do the daily, grinding work of maintenance.

But even as we prepare the physical exhibition, we are thinking about the future. We are pursuing a deep archiving relationship with archivi.ng, because we understand that for a legacy to be permanent, it must be accessible. It must be digitized. It must exist in a way that the next generation of operations managers and historians can find it without having to fight through forty years of dust.

The logistical map is expanding. We have secured the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Ogun State, a venue that matches the historical gravity of Coach’s life. It is a milestone that makes the sleepless nights feel worth it.

The Mountain of Lagos

But there is still the mountain of Lagos.

Lagos is the NBA’s most important city outside of North America. This is not an exaggeration. The league has known it for years. Gbemisola Abudu, VP of NBA Africa, championed the NBA Africa x Art Exhibition precisely because she understood what Lagos audiences bring to a cultural event: appetite, sophistication, and a relationship with basketball that is personal rather than tourist. 

People in Lagos do not go to basketball events because they are fashionable. They go because the sport is woven into the social fabric of the city in a way that football gets all the credit for but basketball, quietly, has always matched.

The NBA Africa x Art Exhibition was a statement of intent: basketball and visual art belong in the same room. It worked. It drew audiences that no gallery exhibition and no sports event could have drawn independently. It proved the concept.

The Collector’s Game is the next iteration of that concept and it raises the stakes in every direction. 

The NBA Africa x Art Exhibition worked with the institution of basketball. The Collector’s Game works with the man who built that institution in Nigeria. Masai Ujiri, whose name and Giants of Africa initiative defined the NBA’s African ambitions, learned the game from Coach OBJ. Hakeem Olajuwon, the player who made Nigeria globally legible to the NBA, was spotted and mentored by OBJ. The collection that will be exhibited was assembled by Coach OBJ

Lagos is where the energy is, where the modern world collides with the traditional. We are working tirelessly to showcase this culture there—to bridge the gap between the quiet intensity of a collection living in Zaria and the fast-paced life of a global megacity. It involves logistics that would make a sane person quit. Insurance riders, transport protocols for fragile ceramics, security for bronzes that are priceless artifacts of West African history.

But I’m not just “doing a project.” I’m holding a life.

There are days when the weight of it feels impossible. When I’m obsessing over the exact dimensions of a cup inscribed with the memory of a workshop that no longer exists. I get irritated when people tell me not to get “sentimental.” I’m not being sentimental; I’m being meticulous— and that is a form of love. I have learned about the different paperwork, certificates of originality, authentication papers that the art community values. I am tapping into a knowledge base larger than anything I have ever experienced. 

Is this one of the perks of curating? That you are forced to learn about the industry?

When I ensure that the provenance of a piece is verified, when I fight for the right lighting for our Kaduna showing, I am protecting the integrity of a man who chose us. Oliver B. Johnson could have taken his talents anywhere. He stayed here. He became a “Nigerian Original.” He built a system of peace through sport, and a system of memory through art.

I’m sitting at my desk today, looking at the layout for the International Museum Day event. I think about the youth who will stay positively engaged because of the BB4P leagues, and I think about the historians who will finally have a record of the Ladi Kwali pieces and basketball in Nigeria as a whole because of our work with archivi.ng and building Nigeria’s First Ever Digital Basketball Archive. 

The two things are the same. They are both about care. They are both about what happens when you decide that something—a person, a culture, a piece of clay—is worth the effort of long-term commitment.

I didn’t go looking for a legend. I just wanted to play basketball, I just wanted to date the tallest boy on the basketball team and complete my engineering degree and somehow on that basketball court in ABU ZARIA, I was drawn into a story that made sense. In finding Coach and his collection, I found the ultimate operation: a life lived with such intentionality that even the dust on his furniture feels like a historical record.

I realize now that my work isn’t just about “projects.” It’s about being the person who stays long enough to see something fully. It’s about becoming responsible for the things we claim to value. It’s about creating my own legacy. 

So, when I walk into the room and Coach salutes me with his trademark “Peace Sadia,” I don’t just hear a greeting. I hear a mandate. I hear the sound of forty years of collecting, fifty years of coaching, and a thousand years of Nigerian history all demanding to be organized, protected, and seen.

As a girl who is drawn to greatness, I made an ambitious list of five destinations I wanted to tour with this collection, to expand our world, to tour the country with these legacies: The Kashim Ibrahim Library, ABU, My studio – The Factories of The World Studio in the National Museum in Kaduna, Galilee in Abuja, The Ecobank Pan African Centre, Lagos because after experiencing the Felabration Exhibition in 2025, I knew what it would mean to celebrate a Legend, who is still alive and how crazy hot it will be to attract the Lagos Basketball Crowd for the brads that will collaborate with us, and the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Ogun State Nigeria. 

The Zaria showing is done. As of today, May 18th 2026, The Kaduna showing is Done. My hosted participants from the National Art Gallery, Abuja and Kaduna, had a knowledge sharing session with the Staff of the National Museum, Kaduna.

Let Us Climax Together

I am calling on Galleries and Brands in Abuja and Lagos. The question is not whether this exhibition merits your support and participation. The question is what your brand wants to say about Nigerian culture in 2026/2027.

Let us climax together. Let us host an Art Exhibition with a little twist! A Legend and A Basketball Tournament.

The Collector’s Game is the first exhibition in Nigerian history to bring a living basketball legend’s private art collection into the public eye across four venues, four states, and four very different institutional registers. There is no comparison point for this because it has not been done. The calibre is new. The scale is new. The subject is a man whose biography is a book and whose collection is, until now, a private matter.

People will come to see this because they have never had the chance before. And your brand will be the reason they had the chance at all.

Lagos is the goal. Ogun is the destination.

I am the operations manager of a miracle. And for the first time, the data and the heart are in perfect alignment.