Incentives, Optics, and Priorities

[John Onyeukwu]

Incentives, Optics, and Priorities:

 What the Super Falcons and D’Tigress Rewards Say About Nigeria_

John Onyeukwu

(Published in a special edition of my Policy & Reform Column of Business am Newspaper on Friday August 22, 2025). Page 6.

Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on Monday, July 29, 2025, announced a $100,000 reward to each player of the Super Falcons for their exceptional performance at the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), where they clinched a record-extending 10th continental title, dubbed “Mission X.” In a thrilling final against host nation Morocco, the Falcons triumphed 3–2, showcasing tactical brilliance, resilience, and unity under pressure. The gesture, positioned as a token of national appreciation and presidential goodwill, has reignited public debate about our values, leadership optics, and national economic priorities, especially in a time of austerity.

That debate deepened just days later, when President Tinubu, through Vice President Kashim Shettima, on Monday, August 4, 2025, conferred national honours (OON), cash rewards of $100,000, and housing gifts to each member of the D’Tigress basketball team and their technical crew following their historic fifth consecutive AfroBasket championship. The team’s emphatic 78–64 victory over hosts Mali not only reaffirmed their dominance but also secured them a place in the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup Pre-Qualifying Tournament. Coach Rena Wakama, tournament MVP Amy Okonkwo, and top scorer Ezinne Kalu were all specially praised. The timing of these high-value rewards, barely a week apart, has made the debate on recognition, equity, and economic prudence all the more urgent.

This development reveals a deeper set of questions we must confront: How do we define merit in public service? What is the role of the state in incentivizing excellence? And in a country grappling with fiscal stress and social fragility, can generosity coexist with justice?

The moral imperative to reward excellence, particularly when it reflects selfless national service, is not in question. The Super Falcons and D’Tigress have earned global respect, shown grit under pressure, and projected Nigeria’s image with dignity. In a society where women’s sports receive little support, their success is even more remarkable.

From a moral-philosophical standpoint, recognition matters. In fact, symbolic and material rewards can be morally justifiable when they reinforce shared values, foster unity, and affirm dignity. But moral action must also be proportionate and sensitive to context. The question becomes: Are these $100,000-per-athlete gifts a celebration of patriotism, or a misjudgment of scale?

In politics, perception is policy. Nigeria is currently navigating a period of economic austerity. Fuel subsidy has been removed. Inflation is biting. The naira is unstable. The government has asked citizens to tighten their belts while borrowing from foreign institutions and increasing taxes. Against this backdrop, the optics of multimillion-dollar disbursements to athletes—however deserving, can erode public trust.

The political danger is not the act of rewarding, but the lack of coherent messaging and prioritization. While the President’s gestures may be well-intended, they risk appearing disconnected from the everyday realities of Nigerians, civil servants who have not seen minimum wage adjustments in years, retirees struggling on ₦2.8 million gratuities after 35 years of service, and students whose educational infrastructure is in decay.

A shrewd political move might have been to announce modest direct cash rewards, supplemented by investments in women’s grassroots sports, scholarships for players' families, or a dedicated fund for developing sports infrastructure. This way, the gesture would combine recognition with systemic improvement, not just consumption.

The economic critique is perhaps the most sobering. With 23 football squad members and an equivalent basketball team, the $100,000 gifts alone amount to over ₦6 billion, excluding the cost of houses and national honors. That sum could fund thousands of SME grants, equip rural clinics, or provide science lab upgrades for public secondary schools across all six geopolitical zones.

Public finance requires us to confront opportunity costs. Nigeria’s budget is constrained. Debt servicing now consumes over 90% of revenue in some quarters. Every expenditure, especially one from the presidency, signals policy priority. What we choose to spend on, and how much, is never just a matter of goodwill; it reflects our implicit social contract.

No civil servant, professor, or retired nurse takes home $100,000 in gratuity. That’s a hard truth. And unless we are ready to apply the same standards of reward across service categories, such acts begin to strain the credibility of our fiscal choices.

This is not a call to demean the Falcons or D’Tigress. It is, instead, a plea for joined-up thinking, for acts of celebration to be nested in coherent, principled, and equitable policy logic.

Going forward, Nigeria should:

Institutionalize Reward Systems:

Sports bonuses and national recognitions should be guided by transparent, performance-based criteria developed through a multi-stakeholder panel comprising representatives from the Ministry of Sports, civil society, athletes’ unions, and financial experts. These rewards should be reviewed annually and benchmarked against public sector compensation to promote fairness and consistency.

Prioritize Sustainability:

Beyond one-time cash rewards, the government should channel resources into building female-focused sports academies, sports medicine centres, and scholarship programs. These investments will ensure long-term talent development, create structured career pathways, and support athletes after retirement, thereby deepening the impact of current successes.

Calibrate Fiscal Responsibility:

In an era of economic hardship, high-profile presidential gestures must align with broader austerity narratives. Public spending should reinforce discipline, not deepen perceptions of inequality or favoritism. Symbolic recognition, when thoughtfully scaled, can inspire without undermining trust in government priorities.

Nigeria’s female athletes are national treasures. They have earned our admiration. But admiration must be matched with wisdom, not just applause. As we celebrate, let us also reflect: a great nation is not only known for how it rewards heroes, but how fairly and consistently it does so, even in hard times. We cannot reward excellence by abandoning equity. And we cannot inspire patriotism while deepening injustice.

https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6de2U7oQhkR1uYDA1S/200

John Onyeukwu
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/

 http://about.me/onyeukwu
“Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation.”
-- James D. Wolfensohn
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[Patrick Effiboley]

Dear John,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts in the past weeks. The article of today is particularly important and relevant since we face similar expenses in sport while infrastructures on our capuses are decaying in Benin Republic. 

Our leaders and policy-makers should be fair while encentivising not to be unjust toward the civil servants and citizens who are doing daily their immeasurable efforts to make our countries stand right.

Dr Emery Patrick EFFIBOLEY

Maître de conférences, Histoire de l'Art

Chef, Département d'Histoire et d'Archéologie, Université d'Abomey-Calavi, Bénin

Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Wits University, RSA,(2014-2016) 

www.researchgate.net/Profile/Emery_Effiboley

 

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[John Onyeukwu]

Dear Dr. Effiboley,

Thank you very much for your kind words and for engaging so thoughtfully with the article. Your reflection from Benin Republic captures the heart of the matter, that while celebrating sporting triumphs is legitimate, fairness and balance must guide public choices. When leaders disproportionately reward one sector and neglect the silent labour of civil servants, teachers, or health workers, they risk deepening a sense of injustice that corrodes trust in institutions.

Indeed, as you rightly note, sports should inspire us, not distract us from the urgent task of strengthening infrastructure and investing in the systems that sustain everyday life. The challenge before our countries is to craft incentive frameworks that reward excellence without creating inequities that undermine cohesion.

I deeply appreciate your perspective and look forward to more cross-border exchanges of ideas. Our contexts may differ, but the principles of justice, prudence, and accountability remain universal.

With warm regards,
John 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/1785281272.546991.1755903495965%40mail.yahoo.com.

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[Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba]

Thanks for this robust opinion on one of our attitudes to Sports.

To buttress our inability to invest in sports opportunities, I feel that sports has not been treated as an economic activity that yields returns in Nigeria at all. I cannot remember the sports ministry or any of the sub departments giving us an audited account partly because they are all dependent on the federal budget. Even our winning bonuses disappear with unprofessional management before, during and after tournaments. Meanwhile, everywhere else in the developed world every opportunity to  make profit from a few sports or games is quickly exploited. It is still surprising that we cannot have a proper, economically sustainable  and profitable football league in Nigeria as passionate as we are about football. With our predominant youthful population, sports would have been a good avenue for addressing social and economic problems in Nigeria. Good football management and player export is still one of the ways Brazil earns vital foreign exchange to further develop sports and other sectors of their economy. 

Our non recognition of recreation and sports whether for health and well being or as economic activities is now affecting planning and design of our cities and different land uses. Open spaces and recreation areas are quickly converted to other uses. The avenue to discover talents in all sports have become limited because we now have educational institutions at all levels that either lack sports facilities or sporting activities are no longer part of the schedule or both. In fact, many of the sportsmen and women being rewarded are either those that took the risk of deciding to take a chance with any game or sport of special interest and/or maximise their potential outside the country. 

Generally, we need to deal with sports as a social and economic activity to derive maximum benefit and exploit our potential. 

E. Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhD

Professor of Architecture

Department of Architecture

Faculty of Environmental Design and Management

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

ebj...@oauife.edu.ng; tundej...@yahoo.co.uk; +234 8037880023

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[John Onyeukwu]

Dear Dr. Jaiyeoba,

Thank you for this powerful intervention. You are right, Nigeria still treats sports as mere spectacle, not as an economic sector capable of generating jobs, revenue, and social cohesion. The lack of audited accounts, weak grassroots investment, and the erosion of open spaces and school facilities only deepen the problem.

Until we embed sports in our development strategy, like Brazil has done with football, our passion will keep outpacing our policy. Sports must be managed as infrastructure, investment, and enterprise, not just expenditure.

Best regards,
John

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