When Nigeria’s Super Falcons secured a stunning 3–2 comeback win over Morocco in the final of the 2025 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), the country erupted in celebration. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hosted the team at the Presidential Villa on July 28th, where he lavished them with Officer of the Order of the Niger awards, and promises of three-bedroom apartments coupled with the naira equivalent of $100,000 for each player and $50,000 for each member of their 11-person technical team.
It is a proud moment for Nigeria; the team has secured its record-extending 10th WAFCON title, and on the surface, Tinubu’s lavish gifts appear to be a rare instance of athletes getting their due.
Beneath the surface, however, the same old frustrations underscore their latest win: last-minute financial interventions, unpaid bonuses, chaotic preparations, and a broader sports culture that only celebrates after victory but barely facilitates the journey there.
On the path to their historic success, the Super Falcons had to overcome severe hurdles. The team had been owed match bonuses for years, at one point resulting in a training boycott in 2022. Even as the Super Falcons triumphed on the way to the finals in Morocco, the backlog of payments was only approved by the President days before Saturday’s final. The Falcons also could not hold competitive friendly matches, and their training kits were said not to have been available.
This potpourri of mismanagement may be prevalent across several Nigerian sports teams, but the women’s teams have it especially bad, a reality sports journalist Oluwashina Okeleji attributes to societal bias: “Partly because of how women have always been viewed in Nigerian society.”
Meanwhile, president Tinubu’s generous announcements have been met with mixed reactions; while many are delighted at the outpouring of gifts, many more have criticised the sheer volume, citing wastefulness on the president’s part. Yet, with the Nigerian government’s long history of over-promising and under-delivering where the nation’s athletes are concerned, critics might be better off saving their breath as it is unlikely that the players will receive these gifts at all.
In 1985, the Golden Eaglets won the inaugural Under-16 World Cup, the nation’s first victory of its kind. The military leader at the time, Muhammadu Buhari promised them national honours, houses, streets named after each member, stock at the central bank, educational scholarships, visits to all the states of the federation and the Mexico 1986 World Cup. None of it materialized. In 2010, captain Nduka Ugbade publicly wept while recounting how their contributions had been ignored. Only in 2016 — over 30 years later — did the government offer a partial compensation of ₦2 million per player.
Chioma Ajunwa, Nigeria’s first and only individual Olympic gold medallist, was promised a house by the Lagos State government after her long jump win in 1996. She finally received it in 2021 — 25 years later. “By the time they [Nigerian athletes] retire, they are just on their own,” she lamented in frustration. “Even when they are sick, you need to appeal to the government before they respond.”
In 2021, Nigeria’s women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, went unpaid for Olympic and FIBA Afrobasket appearances, forcing them to speak out in a viral video where they listed out important grievances, from funds owed to general disregard despite representing the country on a consistently applaudable basis, threatening to boycott the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. It wasn’t until 2023 that the Musa Kida-led board finally paid them what was owed.
These aren’t isolated incidents, they’re structural failures, and this level of state induced frustration has driven many athletes to abandon Nigeria altogether.
Sprinter Favour Ofili is one of the prime examples. After missing the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) failing drug-testing protocols, she then missed the 100m at the 2024 Paris Olympics — not because she didn’t qualify, but because the AFN had failed to register her. While she went on to compete in the 200m, placing sixth, the damage had been done and in May 2025, she switched her allegiance to Turkey.
Oluwakemi Adekoya, born in Lagos, now competes for Bahrain. Femi Ogunode represents Qatar. And famously, Francis Obikwelu — after years of mistreatment — defected to Portugal. In 2004, he won a silver medal in Athens, prompting some tone-deaf Team Nigeria officials to celebrate his win, as though he still ran under their flag.
While the country is slowly drained of its prime athletes, the Nigerian government has continued to show blatant disregard for both the welfare of its athletes, and for its contractual obligations with the third parties involved in international sports, marring the country’s image as well as dashing goodwill towards its athletes.
During the 2021 Olympics, news broke that the athletic federation of Nigeria (AFN) had breached a contract with German sportswear manufacturing company Puma. Reportedly worth 2.76 million dollars for a 4-year period, Puma was supposed to provide the kits for Nigeria’s athletics contingent at the recent Olympics, but the deal never materialised due to political in-fighting. Nigeria’s sport minister Sunday Dare was said to have blocked the kits from reaching the athletes, claiming they were part of a criminal investigation. Puma terminated the contract and stated that they would sue the AFN, the inevitable outcome of the embarrassing altercation.
To make matters worse, Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, who represented Nigeria at the Olympics in the Men’s shot put event that year, shared a video of him washing the sole jersey he was provided with after his qualifying rounds, which he was expected to re-use at the finals the very next day. In his reaction, Mr. Dare claimed that the video was only shared to embarrass Nigeria, failing to address the real issue behind the well-deserved embarrassment.
One-time windfalls like Tinubu’s recent rewards might appear generous, but they only serve to distract from the real issues — while undoubtedly deserved, the Super Falcons and all other Nigerian athletes would benefit greatly from investment in facilities, staff, and fair, consistent compensation.
The government must overhaul its approach. The current $5,000 reward for gold medals outside football is insultingly low. Funding for infrastructure is critically lacking. Rwanda, for instance, has hosted over 70 international sports events since 2021 and earned over $50 million in revenue, proving what sports investment can yield. Nigeria does not want for extraordinary athletes, and none are shining brighter right now than the Super Falcons. But their success came in spite of broken systems, administrative chaos, and sustained neglect. Athletes deserve more than applause when they win and apologies when they lose. Until this is realised, Nigeria will continue to lose its best sportsmen — not to defeat, but to defection and disappointment.
0 Comments
Add your own hot takes