Nigeria Has Given D'Tigress $100,000 Each, a Flat, and a National Honour. Now Someone Please Fix the Roads They'll Drive Home On

Nigeria has done it again. That thing we do where we cannot fix anything consistently but we can absolutely, spectacularly celebrate when something goes right. D'Tigress won their fifth consecutive AfroBasket championship, beating Mali 78-64 in Abidjan like Mali owed them money, and before the sweat dried, Aso Rock had already written the cheque.

$100,000 for every player. A flat in the Renewed Hope Housing Estate. The national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger. The coach and technical team got $50,000 each and their own flats. Vice President Kashim Shettima announced everything at a reception at the State House Banquet Hall while the president himself was, well, represented. As is tradition.

And look, this is genuinely deserved. D'Tigress have won seven AfroBasket titles overall. They have a 29-game unbeaten run in the tournament that stretches nearly a decade. Coach Rena Wakama became the first African woman to lead a team to back-to-back championships. Amy Okonkwo, team captain, won MVP. These women are not just winning, they are embarrassing everyone else on the continent on a schedule. Nigeria's women's sports teams are doing things that the men's teams put on their vision boards and then forget about.

But here is the part that is making Nigerians simultaneously proud and slightly unwell: this is the second celebration in two weeks. The Super Falcons also got $100,000 each and flats after winning Nigeria's 10th WAFCON title in Morocco. Two sets of women. Two championships. Two months. Two real estate allocations from a government that is still explaining fuel prices to a population buying bread in instalments.

Nobody is saying the women don't deserve it. They deserve every dollar, every brick, every honour. What Nigeria needs to urgently explain is why excellence only unlocks the treasury when there is a trophy in the room.

Fix the courts they train on, and maybe the trophies will stop being a surprise.