Nigeria’s Super Falcons football team are true history makers, achieving their incredible “Mission X” by winning their 10th Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon). This remarkable achievement is a dominance unmatched in any continental men or women’s sport.

The Super Falcons have won all 10 finals they have reached, and never failed to make it to the semifinals in 13 Wafcon editions since 1998. Equatorial Guinea (2008 and 2012) and SA (2022) are the only other winners.

The Falcons’ swashbuckling, inspirational captain, Rasheedat Ajibade, dedicated the triumph to “every young girl in our villages, towns and cities who dares to dream”.

The manner of Nigeria’s victory in the final against Morocco’s Atlas Lionesses in Rabat was truly breathtaking. The Super Falcons were down 2-0 until the 64th minute, before showing incredible resilience somehow to haul themselves back from what appeared to be a lost cause.

The comeback was triggered by a player of the match performance by Esther Okoronkwo, who scored from a penalty, made the pass for the second goal by Folashade Ijamilusi, and then fired the free kick for Jennifer Echegini’s winning goal. This was sweet revenge for the Atlas Lionesses’ victory over the Super Falcons in the 2022 Wafcon semifinal in Morocco.

Coached by Justine Madugu, who had no previous international experience before this tournament, after a somewhat disjointed start in which the Super Falcons beat Tunisia’s Carthage Eagles 3-0, they defeated Botswana’s Zebras 1-0 and drew 0-0 with Algeria’s Desert Foxes in a dead rubber game, having already qualified and rested several star players.

The Super Falcons finally soared in the quarterfinals, trashing Zambia’s highly fancied Copper Queens 5-0, a team that included reigning African Women’s footballer of the year, Barbra Banda. The hard-fought 2-1 semifinal victory over SA’s defending African champions, Banyana Banyana, was the sweetest victory for Nigerians against an arch foe.

But, as sweet as this Wafcon triumph was, it was achieved despite rather than because of the notoriously nefarious maladministration at the Nigerian Football Federation, who failed to arrange any international friendlies for the Super Falcons in the eight months leading up to Wafcon. The federation has often failed to pay bonuses, and the Falcons’ former American coach, Randy Waldrum, went unpaid for 14 months, despite taking the team to the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand (where they came within a whisker of defeating eventual finalists, England’s Lionesses, in a pulsating round of 16 encounter) and the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

It was sad to see so many empty seats at Wafcon in matches not involving the Moroccan hosts, even at the blockbuster Nigeria and SA semifinal. Much more investment in clubs, players, grassroots development and stadiums is still required to achieve the teeming crowds witnessed during the Women’s Euros in Switzerland, which took place at the same time as Wafcon.

Amid the celebrations important questions of equity must also be posed to the Patrice Motsepe-led Confederation of African Football (CAF): why has Morocco been assigned the hosting of three consecutive Wafcon tournaments, including the next one in 2026? Why has the North African country simultaneously been awarded the hosting of the next men’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in 2025/26?

Why is a country that belatedly withdrew from hosting Afcon in 2015 due to deep prejudice about cases of Ebola in three West African countries, and was subsequently suspended and fined by CAF, being so generously rewarded? One can only hope that African football is not relapsing into the era of graft-ridden favouritism and skulduggery witnessed during autocratic Cameroonian Issa Hayatou’s two-decade misrule.

This article originally appreared in Business Day on 10 August 2025.