AFA Sports to officially outfit a team at the Olympic Games in Tokyo this year

Ugo Udezue has pioneered the first and only African sports apparel company which makes it an important thing for Africans to show the opportunity in the continent, that Africa is viable for business and that Africans will spend money on a product if it’s good,’ says Ugo Udezue, who describes himself as Pan-African [Courtesy of AFA Sports]

Udezue was recently been appointed chairman of the Anambra Basketball Association in Nigeria’s eighth-most-populous state.

AFA Sports, which means “Africa for Africa” and which has grown to become one of the continent’s hottest sports merchandising and apparel companies.

“Our tagline is ‘This Is Ours,’” Udezue said, in reference to the traditional communal culture within the continent. “We’re trying to build something that is not individualistic.”

Indeed, the name “LIV (54)” was even inscribed on one of AFA’s first lines, with 54 flags to represent the number of countries on the African continent.

But Udezue has other advantages. Some of Africa’s biggest entertainment stars – from Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie to Nigerian singer-songwriter Patoranking – endorse AFA Sports.

“I actually stopped wearing other brands,” Nigerian singer-songwriter Paul Okoye, also known as Rudeboy, told Al Jazeera. “The nature of my work is sports-like because I move around a lot so I wear AFA for my concerts because it’s perfect for the weather here.”

In addition to sponsoring the Olympic-bound Nigerian national basketball team, AFA Sports kits teams in more than five African countries, and sponsors different football leagues as well sports camps and academies.

He said, “We have everything we need here: the resources, the people and hopefully, we can light a fire that will resonate across Africa.”