It is said the only thing which is permanent in life is change. It is for this reason that for every entity there are times when things go the way they are expected and there are also some times when things go the contrary.

This has been the story of Nigeria's basketball as it has also had its fair share of the ups and downs in the international arena for years.

There appears to be a light at the end of the dark tunnel as efforts are being made to reverse the trend and ensure the country has a shot at the positive side of the game, beginning with the Africa Nations Cup for men holding in Libya from 15-25 August this year.

In order to achieve this tall ambition, the Minister of Sports and Chairman National Sports Commission, Engineer Sani Mohammed Ndanusa has assembled distinguished Nigerians under the umbrella of Special Task Force on 2009 Basketball Nations Cup in Libya.

The task force is made up of men who have played, administered, tutored the game and represented the country in the game at the highest level.

Their mission and vision among other things is to win the African Nations Cup for men (Afro basket 2009) for the first time; qualify the country for the World Championship in Turkey in 2011; aspire to host the African Nations Cup in 2011 and consequently qualify Nigeria for the Olympics for the first time in 2012.

As difficult as the target looks, Tijani Umar who is the Chairman of the task force told sports reporters at a media briefing in Abuja last Thursday that members have mapped out strategies that would ensure Nigeria achieves the set goals.

While Nigeria has already qualified for the African Nations Cup for men in Libya, the women would slug it out with other countries in the zone 3 qualifiers slated for Nigeria at the end of May.

Aware of the enormity of the task ahead of it, the task force has established five work groups, namely secretariat and communication; player liaison/hosting; fund raising, marketing and sponsorship; coaching, camp, equipments and championship as well as public and media relations.

The Task Force's efforts have already started yielding results, as the player liaison/hosting group has covered a lot of ground in identifying, making contact with and obtaining the consent of prospective Nigerian players in the US and Europe to attend the national camp and fight for a shirt in the Nations Cup campaign.

A number of new players have been identified by the group, while a few of the old ones are being considered for the first camp proposed to hold in Washington DC, United States between 26-30 June.

Some of the newly discovered and promising players being considered for the camping exercise are Josh Akognon of the California State, Fullerton; Ben Uzo of Tulsa; Kingsley Oguchi of South Carolina State; Abdullahi Kuso of Gonzaa; Anthony Skinn of George Mason (France) and Emmanuel Negudu of Tennessee State.

The players will be led by tested and trusted Ime Udoka of San Antonio Spurs in the NBA, who has also agreed to talk to other Nigerian players in the NBA to answer the national call.

The Task Force plans to invite between 25-30 players to the team's first camp, including 3-5 local players from the Premier League so as to encourage local players to aspire to the senior national team.

The Task Force in an attempt to woo foreign-based Nigerian players to represent their fatherland is currently assisting some of the players in the US to obtain Nigerian passports, once it is established that they have not breached any eligibility rule.

Accordingly, the Task Force has advertised and received applications from nine world class coaches to handle the male national team.

The coaches are former Nigeria national team handler Sam Vincent, Dennis Felton former coach of University of Georgia, Dean Murray Assistant Coach of LG Lakers of Korea and Myre Scholl of Loyola Marymount University.

Others are Alex Nwora head coach of Ene Community College Buffalo, Ayinla Johnson a Nigerian based in the UK, Alain Weisz former Head Coach of the French national team to the European Championship in 2003, Italian coach of 2003 and 2005 Fabio Fossati and a first class college coach Tod Bozeman.

Apart recruiting a sound coach for Nigeria, Task Force will also get competent assistants to support the head coach to drive the team to success; while those that have had distinguished career with the women teams in Europe will be drafted to handle the women national team.

The build-up to wining the title in Libya will start with the first camping exercise in June and the second in July from where the team would travel to France in the third week of July for a warm up invitational with the national team of France before returning to Nigeria for the Libya fiesta.

In order to arrest the perennial problem of inadequate funds to prosecute major events, the Task Force has commenced fund-raising drive, with Sports Minister assuring that th NSC will support the campaign with resources.

On the local scene, he informed that the Task Force has held meetings with Multichoice and Zenith Bank, sponsors of the country's two major basketball leagues with a view to getting them started for the 2009 season.

Hopes are high that with all these programmes fully implemented, the future of the Nigerian basketball will greatly improved, considering that the problem with the Nigeria basketball is not that of materials but how to harness the abundant talents into a title wining side.