ABUJA (FIBA Women’s AfroBasket 2017) – Winners must be rewarded and indeed the FIBA Women's AfroBasket 2017 champions Nigeria have been accorded the benefits that come with making a nation proud.

After seeing off 12-time record and reigning champions Senegal as well as booking a slot to the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2018 in Spain, D’Tigress received recognition from Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari.

On Wednesday August 30, President Muhamadu Buhari hosted the African champions at his Aso Villa residence and revealed that he was proud of their efforts and also announced that each player will receive N1m (approximately $2,753) with the technical team getting half of that apiece.

"It will motivate us to do more by the grace of God. We played as a team and we believed in each other. Our coach said we shouldn't stop playing until we heard the last whistle and that was what we did and we came out victorious.” - Mohammed

Buhari then promised that D'Tigress will get the full backing of the Nigerian Government to prepare well for the world tournament.

“We feel overjoyed that the President invited us to come here. We are excited. We promise to give Nigeria more victories and by the grace of God we will go to Spain and win,” Nigeria's captain Aisha Mohammed noted. 

"It will motivate us to do more by the grace of God. We played as a team and we believed in each other. Our coach said that we shouldn't stop playing until we heard the last whistle and that was what we did and we came out victorious," Mohammed said.

The President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) Musa Ahmadu Kida attributed the success of the team to the democratic process that has returned to the federation adding that if the team could achieve this result in three weeks of the new executive they will repeat the same feat in Spain.

Nigeria and Senegal will be Africa's representatives at the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2018 in Spain from September 22-30. 

FIBA