Izuchukwu OkosiReprieve has come the way of the Nigeria men’s basketball national team, D’Tigers, as they have boarded a flight to Tunis, capital of Tunisia on Thursday night for the first window of 2025 FIBA Afrobasket qualifiers that began Friday, February 23, Prime Business Africa reports.
The team were at the verge of missing out of the qualifying games due to lack of funds but the Musa Kida – led board of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has come to the rescue of the team.
Prime Business Africa gathered that the Basketball Federation was advised to fund the trip to Tunisia and will be reimbursed by the sports ministry in three weeks time when funds for the team’s outing as well as other sporting events by the country’s representatives will be made available.
Meanwhile, FIBA Africa which is the coordinating body of FIBA on the continent of Africa, have magnanimously moved the game between Tunisia and Nigeria from the 2 pm tip-off local time to 8 pm on Friday evening.
Nigeria’s basketball national teams have suffered the ignominy of missing out of major tournaments in recent years.
The D’Tigress failed to participate at the 2023 FIBA World Cup because of a face-off between the team players and then sports minister, Sunday Dare.
The team’s ban by the Federation of International Basketball Association (FIBA) was later reversed but their place at the tournament was lost.
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.
