D’Tigress Get Their Money: Tinubu Closes Out Afro Basket Reward Pledge

President confirms full presidential payout to Nigeria’s five-time Afro Basket champions, completing a three-part reward package of homes, honours and cash.

President Bola Tinubu has confirmed the full payment of a $100,000 cash reward, in naira equivalent, to each player of Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, more than a year after the team won a record fifth consecutive AfroBasket title.

The presidency said team officials received the naira equivalent of $50,000 each, completing the cash component of a three-part reward package the Federal Government had promised the team following their 2025 continental triumph.

Tinubu said the payment, alongside three-bedroom homes in Abuja whose title documents were handed over in February and national honours that included Officer of the Order of the Niger awards for members of the squad, represented the first time a Nigerian government had fully honoured this scale of presidential sporting reward within one year.

“For the first time, a Federal Government has fully fulfilled this scale of presidential sporting rewards within one year. We had to follow the processes required by law and ensure that every commitment was properly implemented,” the President said.

The National Sports Commission confirmed on Thursday that the disbursement had been completed, more than 13 months after the pledge was first made following D’Tigress’s fifth straight and seventh overall AfroBasket championship, a run that has established the team as Africa’s most dominant women’s basketball side.

The delay in fulfilling the cash pledge had drawn criticism over the past year from sports commentators and some players’ representatives, who noted that similar cash rewards for other national teams had historically taken far longer, or were never fully paid.

Tinubu used the announcement to disclose that the Federal Government was also completing outstanding cash rewards for the Super Falcons, Nigeria’s senior women’s football team, whose members have already received housing and national honours but were still being processed for cash payments.

The reward payment comes as Nigerian sports administrators continue to grapple with funding and welfare complaints from national athletes across disciplines, with D’Tigress’s experience often cited as a test case for whether government pledges to sportswomen are honoured in full and on time.

Reactions from within the basketball community were largely positive, with several stakeholders describing the completed payment as a morale boost for the team ahead of continued international assignments, though the Nigeria Basketball Federation had yet to issue an official statement by the time of this report.