Wazobia: The Abuja football cup bridging Nigeria’s divides

Rain had just begun falling over Ijayapi, a community in Abuja’s Kubwa district, on the evening of 2 August, but the spectators stayed. Some stood around the dusty football field. Others perched on concrete blocks and unfinished buildings to keep above the water as players battled through the final of the Wazobia Super Cup.

Before the referee blew the whistle, Chukwuma Dominion, the tournament’s lead organiser, who works in construction and property, walked onto the pitch and turned to the finalists.

‘Regardless of what happens today and who later wins, we are all winners... the theme of this tournament is coming together for peace and oneness. We are, despite where the struggle might take us, still together.’

On the field were teams representing two of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups, the Igbo and the Yoruba. The match ended 2–2, and the Igbo side won the penalty shootout 5–3 to close the tournament’s third edition. The first edition was held in 2023 and the second in 2025.

Every weekend since June, the tournament had brought together teams representing eight Nigerian communities – Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Gbagyi, Tiv, Edo, Idoma and Igala – turning a local pitch into a meeting place for people whose backgrounds stretch across the country.

In a country where ethnic identity often shapes politics and access to opportunity, such everyday meeting places matter. Organised by residents with little outside funding, Wazobia shows how ordinary Nigerians are building trust across ethnic lines from the ground up.

When FairPlanet visited Daudu Isa Danjuma, the chief of Ijayapi, at his residence, he said the tournament offered more than football. Recalling the second edition, when the Gbagyi team won and presented the trophy to him, he said he was pleased to see young people coming together and working collectively.

‘I am very happy to see our youths coming together and doing great things together,’ he said, urging them to preserve that spirit. ‘If they see anything evil coming to the community, just as they unite in football, they should unite together to drive it away.’

The tournament takes its name from three words – wa in Yoruba, zo in Hausa and bia in Igbo – all of which mean ‘come’. Wazobia has long served as shorthand for Nigerian unity: a recent study describes the term as a fusion of the country’s three major languages that can symbolise inclusion across ethnic lines.

For many of the people who gathered in Ijayapi, coming together was as important as winning. Akande Adeola, a 29-year-old supporter, told FairPlanet that people do not have to abandon their ethnic identities to build relationships across them; they simply need a shared space in which those identities can coexist.

The gap between tolerance and trust

Relations between Nigeria’s ethnic groups have long been strained. Mistrust between the Igbo and the Yoruba deepened around the 1966 coups and the civil war that followed, and resurfaced more recently in Lagos, where ethnic tensions flared around the 2023 elections.

A dispatch published by Afrobarometer in September 2026 illustrates the wider gap between tolerance and trust. Across 38 African countries, 87% of respondents said they would welcome or accept living next door to someone of a different ethnicity, but only 49% said they trusted people from other ethnic groups.

In other words, living side by side does not necessarily build trust – but football can help bridge that gap. A study published in the American Economic Review found that people in sub-Saharan Africa surveyed shortly after their national team won a match were less likely to identify primarily with their ethnic group and more likely to trust people of other ethnicities.

Jimoh Amzat, a professor and sociologist at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, said that although Wazobia operates on a much smaller scale, its repeated encounters on and around the pitch offer a similar opportunity to weaken ethnic boundaries and build a sense of belonging. ‘Sociologically, such spaces (such as games) strengthen bridging ties, collective identities and belonging, if, and only if, the tournament serves a vital opportunity for other inclusive social participation beyond the pitch,’ he said.

A city of arrivals

People arrive in Abuja from across the country in search of jobs, education, family or simply a chance to build a life. The city was partly designed with this diversity in mind: when Nigeria’s military government decided in 1976 to move the capital from Lagos, it chose a central site that would not favour any major ethnic group. The presidency formally relocated in 1991.

‘Moving to the capital does not necessarily mean leaving behind the community you came from,’ said Aliu Abubakar, captain of the Yoruba team. For him, that is part of what makes a tournament like Wazobia important.

He said football gives communities a chance to meet and feel connected.

‘It gives people peace of mind, allows you to meet and know other people, and creates a sense of belonging,’ Abubakar told FairPlanet.

For many spectators, the tournament also offers a brief escape from Abuja’s everyday pressures, from soaring rents to the rising cost of living. At weekends, they come to relax, cheer and connect – and identities that can become sources of tension in Nigeria’s political and social life become reasons to celebrate.

Dominion said these repeated encounters are what make the tournament meaningful: supporters meet one another across matches, and communities get to watch each other compete.

‘Our only challenge is funding and partnership. This will help us to give platforms to teenagers and young players,’ Dominion said.

Path to professionalism

Grassroots football offers a chance to compete, gain experience and perhaps be noticed. Nigeria’s football system does not automatically turn grassroots participation into professional careers, but for young players, Wazobia is about more than community pride: it is a rare opportunity to learn and showcase their talent.

Mutiu Adepoju, a former Super Eagles midfielder who earned 48 caps for Nigeria, said tournaments organised at community level can have value beyond entertainment.

‘Football is a unifying factor, and it has been for so many years. Grassroots football tournaments will bring people together and unify people, irrespective of their identities. They will also strengthen social cohesion.

‘It will bring youths together and make them compete. Who knows, some of them might be discovered, and they might become professionals,’ Adepoju told FairPlanet.

For some teams, losing means returning the following year with something to prove.

Ifeanyi Isaac, the Igbo team’s coach, who is in his 50s, was elated: his side had lost in the previous edition, and this time, he said, they returned with greater determination and better preparation. ‘With determination and consistency, everything is possible. Do not relent,’ he said, encouraging other teams.

More than a game

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has used football to rebuild trust in conflict-affected Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria. In Bama, its Peace through Sports Engagement programme placed young people from the host community and from camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in mixed teams; participants told UNDP the matches had strengthened cooperation and built trust.

Kubwa is not a conflict zone, and Wazobia is not a peacebuilding programme. But the underlying mechanism is similar: people who might otherwise remain socially separate are given a reason to spend time together.

The final day was not only about football. Traditional music, dance and cultural performances were part of the celebration, carrying the communities’ identities beyond team names and jerseys.

By the closing moments, the rain-soaked, slippery ground had become part of the spectacle. Supporters from different communities took pictures and greeted one another, while Igbo and Yoruba players shook hands and hugged.

Emmanuel Luka, coach of Arewa FC – the Hausa team, whose name means ‘north’ in Hausa – said the tournament’s significance goes beyond football. He said it had taught him the value of unity among people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Even when there is no tournament, he said, they train together.

‘The tournament has touched me in the area of unity. No religion, no tribe. We are all together as one. And culturally, when we have issues, we talk about it,’ Luka told FairPlanet. He added that the tournament has also helped people discover connections within their own community that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

‘Honestly, we get to know our own brothers whom we don’t know. We used to see them walking around. We don’t know them, but this tournament brings them out,’ he said.