Izuchukwu OkosiPaucity of funds may derail Nigeria’s participations at major basketball tournaments in the month of July including the FIBA AfroCon tournament holding in Angola from the 8th to 16th of July.
Nigeria’s home-based D’Tigers team failed to qualify for the tournament in Tunis, Tunisia but was handed a wild card to participate eventually.
The other tournaments that Nigerian teams are scheduled to take part in are the U16 male and Female junior championship in Tunisia, from the 13th to 21th of july 2023.
The U16 championships is to qualify the U16 to the world cup for U17 slated for 2024.
The President of Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), Engr. Musa Kida, has personally been funding most activities of the NBBF in recent times, just as he single handedly sourced the funds for the two U16 teams to the qualifiers of the tournment in Ghana and the Men’s national team in Ivory Coast respectively.
The patriotic and selfless act allegedly made some aggrevied board members angry and offended that they were not carried along and made part of the travelling delegation for the purpose of collecting estacodes.
In order to avoid what might be another embarrassing moment for the game in the country, the President of NBBF has led the call for all board members to put all hands on deck as it is the equitable practice to look for funds to allow the teams participate in the championships.
Meanwhile, keen observers and concerned stakeholders expect all members of the board including the supposedly aggrieved, will come up with some funding to assist the federation.
Stakeholders of the sport hope that instead of trying to blackmail the NBBF President and other members, the aggrieved board members would support the activities of the NBBF to make ensure the hopes of the young players are not dashed.
In the coming days, the NBBF are expected to inform the public for the first time on contributions and decisions taken concerning the participation of the teams in these championships.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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