Bright start for Nigerian sports in 2025

The new year is already one month old and it is heartwarming that it has started on a good note for Nigerian sports. Many of the events expected to shape the outlook of sports in this country in 2025 have started unraveling.

The national U19 Women Cricket team – the Junior Female Yellow Greens, who returned to the country on Friday from Malaysia, have given the country enough reasons to be hopeful and happy. The young princesses may not have won the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 U-19 Women World Cup but they have surely won the hearts of many fans of the sport both home and abroad.

Victory over two better rated test nations in cricket – New Zealand and Ireland underlined the progress Nigeria has made in the sport in the last couple of years. This clearly shows the potential and possibilities of Nigerian sports if the problem of administration is fixed. If the administrators adopt long term planning with a deliberate investment in the grassroots using schools as the foundation for sports development, the results and successes will be phenomenal.

The President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) Uyi Akpata, a household name in corporate Nigeria, deserves his flowers. A high ranking official with accounting giants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Akpata has used his pedigree and contacts to push cricket to national consciousness.

As a young and fledgling sports journalist, football was my forte. I was focused on the bigger sports – football, basketball and athletics. However, in the course of my work, my colleague and friend  Sam Emehelu, a ‘golf addict’, succeeded in dragging me to some high profile golf events where the attraction for me was usually the good food, cozy and lovely ambience as well as the opportunity to meet some ‘big boys’. On a few of such occasions I had the chance to exchange pleasantries with Akpata.

When I bumped into Emehelu some time in 2017, he told me he was now heavily into reporting cricket, although he didn’t stay away from his first love, golf. I knew there must be some good reason to it and I was right – Akpata had become elected the Vice President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation. In 2021, Akpata would go on to become the President of the federation.

In June 2022, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the Nigeria Cricket Federation as the winner of the Cricket for Good Social Impact Initiative for the year. The ICC highlighted that the NCF used the sport as a tool for engaging and assisting in the development of internally displaced refugees who had been the victims of terrorism and insurgency in some parts of the country, helping their integration and inclusion into the society. Thousands of young boys and girls were introduced to the sport through secondary school competitions and most of them were in the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) camp in Benin, Edo State.

When receiving that award, Akpata dedicated it to the millions of children in those camps across Nigeria. The NCF, according to sources, is projecting to introduce about 250,000 children to the sport soon.

Some of the factors leading to this Nigerian cricket success story include;
1. Proper corporate support and governance.
Accounting giants, PricewaterhouseCoopers, have sponsored the national U-17 championship for over five years now. The 2024 edition of the championship had representatives from 33 states in attendance, a testimony to the growth of the sport across the country. This was the largest cricket talent pool for secondary school students. In addition, all players in Nigeria’s age grade teams over the past five years passed through this championship. The outstanding captain of the U-19 women’s team to Malaysia, Lucky Piety, was a 14-year-old in 2021 when she debuted in the championship and earned a call up to the national team in the process.
2. Infrastructure upgrade and High Performance Centre.
The NCF has really pushed hard to make Nigeria the hub of the sport in West Africa. Nigeria can now boast of a good number of international grade pitches – the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), University of Lagos, Edo Boys High School and Iyoba Girls High School in Edo State, the two ovals at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja and the High Performance Centre is in Edo State.
3. Focus on grassroots development.
Nigeria is one of Africa’s fastest growing cricket nations. The sport is gaining traction in schools and at the grassroots levels. Many players have been discovered and nurtured through youth, age grade competitions tailored through the school system and this has helped in getting players with the right ages, contributing in no small measure to the vibrancy seen in our national teams. Nigeria’s wicket keeper in Malaysia, Deborah Bassey, and her teammate Inyene Umoh are both from the Community Secondary Commercial School, Ibiaku Itam, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

Akpata and the ICC General Manager in charge of Development, Mr William Glenwright, had commissioned a ‘practice net’ at the school in 2023 and today it has produced two members of the Junior Female Yellow Greens to the World Cup. I watched a video of some junior students of the school who are so thrilled and inspired by the fact that they saw their seniors on television representing Nigeria at the World Cup and hoping to follow in the same route.

It is important to highlight that in 2020, against all odds, Nigeria’s men’s U-19 team (Junior Yellow Greens) became the first West African nation to qualify for the ICC U-19 World Cup, a hugely significant achievement for the region.

The remarkable performance in Malaysia where Nigeria made it to the Super 6 stage and finished third in her group ahead of New Zealand and Ireland has earned her an automatic ticket to the next edition of the ICC U-19 Women World Cup in 2027 and also drawn the attention of the cricket world to Nigeria as an emerging force. Without a doubt, this should be the beginning of greater things to come, the foundation of bigger giant strides.

For our history making princesses and heroines – Lucky Piety, Deborah Bassey, Christabel Chukwuonye, Omosigho Eguakun, Peculiar Agboya, Lillian Ude, Inyene Umoh, Peace Usen, Anointed Akhigbe, Adeshola Adekunle, Victory Igbinedion, Jessica Bieni, Naomi Memeh, Beauty Oguai, Muhibat Amusa, the coaches – Sarah Bakhita, Blessing Etim, Theophilus Ibodeme and officials – Femi John, Okechukwu Onwudiwe, Team Doctor – Omonye Asika and Team Physiotherapist – Chioma Eze, a Presidential reception hosted by the First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu, and some accompanying cash rewards would not be out of place.

A word of caution – To get to the top may be hard and difficult, to stay at the top is harder and more difficult. This is the challenge to Akpata and his team. The reward for success and progress is more hard work.

To the sports authorities in Nigeria represented by the National Sports Commission (NSC), to enjoy the limelight and record more remarkable successes like we have in Malaysia, kindly share the Nigeria Cricket Federation’s blueprint and template with the other sports federations.