South-West Games 2025: Team Lagos Secures Historic First Title
Team Lagos Reign Supreme At South-West Games 2025
The 2025 South-West Games was the first of its kind and featured a total of six states from the southwest region of Nigeria competing in seven sports disciplines between March 25 and 29 in Lagos.
The event comprised football, basketball, table tennis, boxing, athletics, volleyball and archery, as well as a premier sub-tournament, the Bola Ahmed Tinubu South-West Alliance Games (BATSWAG), which was added to show off the region’s most talented under-18 sportspeople.
After five days of grueling competition, host state Lagos emerged as the winners of the inaugural South-West Games and BATSWAG, earning an incredible 21 medals, including an unassailable 14 gold, along with five silver and two bronze medals.
Team Lagos’s impressive performance at the competition was capped off with a stunning 5-2 victory over Ekiti in the men’s football final on the final day of the Games after notching up all five gold medals along with two silver in table tennis.
The hosts state also secured all four golds in boxing and a combined seven medals (four gold, two silver and one bronze) in archery. Not only did the victory bring pride to the state, but it also catapulted some of Lagos’s brightest athletes to stardom across the nation.
Behind Team Lagos in the standings was Ogun State, which finished in second place with a solid tally of 10 gold medals, including finishing top in basketball, while Ondo State completed the final podium with three gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals.
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2025 South-West Games: A Resounding Success for Nigerian Sport
The Games attracted interest from all over the globe as well as from the nation’s most successful sportspeople, such as William Troost-Ekong, who took the time to wish the participating athletes good luck at the opening ceremony a day after the Super Eagles took on Zimbabwe in a crucial 2026 World Cup qualifier in Uyo.
Upon conclusion of the inaugural South-West Games, the overall staging and outcome of the competition were considered a resounding success, which has prompted the games' major sponsor, First Bank Nigeria, to pledge ongoing support of the initiative for the foreseeable future.
At the closing ceremony, the Executive Director of FirstBank, Seyi Oyfeso, said:
“We will always support anything that is targeted at youths. At FirstBank, we will continue to embrace anything that engages our youth positively and things that encourage them to put their energies into things that are position and rewarding.”
However, Oyfeso also added that FirstBank’s support will not be confined to only the South-West and urged other regions in Nigeria to create and organise such events across the nation as platforms to allow the Nigerian youth to showcase their skills on a national stage.
