It was originally announced that Burna Boy was going to perform, but he made this tweet instead. He later performed at the England Lionesses' concert (England won the Women's Euros a day after Nigeria won WAFCON).
Burna Boy @burnaboy
Big love to the Super Falcons 🇳🇬. 10x Champions and still making history! You all inspire me. Can’t wait to see you lot soon! #NoSignOfWeakness #WAFCONQueens
Hannatu Musawa is the Minister of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy.
Hannatu Musa Musawa @hanneymusawa
Following the triumphant reception of the #SuperFalcons at the Presidential Villa, hosted a concert in their honour featuring #Flavour #Teni #Faze #Fido #TimiDakolo. It was the perfect way to unwind & celebrate a team that has made all of #Nigeria proud. Congratulations 💚🤍💚
GeneralDae: Well I would agree that there’s been nothing of this scale in terms of the gifts and after party but Jonathan rewarded them with about 10 million naira (if I’m not mistaken) as at 2014. The Dangote’s, Elumelu’s and Adenuga’s also rewarded the set of 2014 handsomely.
I suspect that the reason why Aisha Falode has that impression is because of what happened in 2016/2017.
The Falcons won WAFCON in 2016, but there was no presidential reception for them, instead the players had to stage a street protest because they were being owed.
In contrast, D'Tigress won Afrobasket in 2017 and there was a presidential reception for them and they were given cash gifts.
This ridiculous idea that "Government must. . ." and "Government should. . ." is so widespread in Nigeria and it is so deeply embedded in the minds of Nigerians that even the most obvious and simplest reforms are met with resistance. That's what happened to Olusegun Obasanjo.
Sports
President Olusegun Obasanjo rightly decided that the Federal Government should not give large sums of money or gifts like cars, etc to sportsmen and women who win competitions.
There has been a tradition that the Federal Government would give large sums of money to sportsmen and women that have done well in competitions like the FIFA World Cup (men and women, senior and junior), the Olympic Games and the Athletics World Championships. My first memory of this is the gifts that were given to the 1980 Nations Cup winning side (Volkswagen Beetles, houses at Festac Town and sums of money). President Obasanjo decided that he would not follow that tradition.
Instead of cash gifts, President Obasanjo rewarded athletes with a presidential handshake. Nigerians went crazy. They criticised Obasanjo, said that athletes needed to be paid and they said that President Obasanjo had provided a justification for Nigerian athletes that chose to represent other countries. Can you imagine that??
It's not as if the athletes did not get any reward. For example, I watched one of those reception ceremonies in the early 2000s and President Obasanjo told the athletes that he had no money or land to give them, all he could give was a handshake, but that there were other people in the hall that could give them money and land. Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Dr Mike Adenuga Jr, Mr Femi Otedola and others were in the hall and they made cash donations to the team and Mallam Nasir El-Rufai (the then minister of the FCT) was also in the hall and he promised them land in Abuja. The issue was that the Federal Government was not going to give the athletes any cash.
I wrote about this in part of my 2006 NFA post. (I also created a thread with that post in 2011 and it was the first of my posts that the anti-spam bot attacked. I recreated it in 2012). I will quote from that post below:
a)Sports development:
Government has no business funding, or running professional sports; rather the government should build gymnasia, lay quality football pitches and athletics tracks provide qualified coaches and instructors and provide modern sports equipment in primary and secondary schools. Indeed the government could use the national stadia at Abuja & Lagos, Liberty, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello stadia as sports academies for school children (where the best talent from surrounding schools can be exposed to the best instructors and equipment), in the mould of the National Sports Institute in Australia & the Centre for sports science in France, rather than allowing them to lie fallow. Professional sports can attract sponsors to fund them; it’s not that easy for school sports to attract sponsors (‘cos no stars), so the government should fund them.
Imagine the U.K government paying David Beckham match allowances and “winning bonus”. Just imagine the uproar in the British Newspapers. When there are schools and hospitals to build and equip etc, the government is spending taxpayers money to pay one millionaire footballer! Money that can save lives! In Germany sponsors provide money for such allowances and get publicity in return. The exact amount is agreed well in advance and, of course, the F.A renders account to the sponsors. The sponsors don’t want bad publicity so they provide the agreed amount. The players are also satisfied because they know they are getting what they’ve agreed to. In Nigeria the players are usually discontented, because they know that the officials usually steal money that has been allocated by government for allowances. The officials don’t have to render account to anybody because this is government’s money and therefore everybody’s/nobody’s money. This is the source of indiscipline, as the players believe that they do all the work, while the officials steal the money.
Government spends a lot of money training lawyers at the law school, training doctors etc and therefore the government should spend money to develop the next generation of football stars who would be independent and give back to the community, just as Kanu is giving back with his heart foundation.
Team Nigeria
President Obasanjo did not stop at the presidential handshake. His administration also created Team Nigeria.
Team Nigeria was a structure that the administration used to mobilise funds from the corporate world for our sportsmen and women. It held fund raising dinners before major competitions and got businessmen and women to donate towards the success of the athletes. It also ensured that some of the companies made some of the athletes their brand ambassadors. The athletes got training grants from the companies and the companies got publicity from the athletes.
Dangote, Adenuga, Otedola, the banks, the Stock Exchange (Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke), etc were all involved in the Team Nigeria project.
National Lottery
In order to secure long term funding for sports, the administration launched the National Lottery. Profit from the lottery was meant to be used to upgrade sports facilities, to provide training grants for athletes and to fund Nigeria's participation in major sports competitions (a similar thing is done in the UK. Funds from the National Lottery is sometimes used for specific sporting needs, for example, some of that money was given to the Football Association to fund the construction of the new Wembley in exchange for certain promises to the government).
You don't have to be in government to have bodyguards. Anybody can have bodyguards.
Kai Cenat is an American influencer, that is, he is just an internet personality o! and these are his bodyguards clashing with fans (the police had to break it up).
Sports › Re: Flavour, Teni, Timi Dakolo At Super Falcons Concert & Dinner (Photos & Videos) by naptu2(op): 4:23pm On Jul 29, 2025
