Aishat Raji enchants the tennis court. Not from electric chants or thunderous applause, but from the sheer astonishment of her being. Just 14, she saunters into the Games arena shorn of symmetry but with the sovereign gift of a single right hand that swings like a poet’s plume.
Raji is a product of grit. Her left hand—once part of her whole body—got severed by the cold blade of tragedy in 2014. At the tender age of three, she was hurled from a storey building by her peers, in an act of childhood mischief that turned catastrophic. Consequently, her left arm was amputated.
Through her ordeal, Raji was undeterred, scorning disability and dreaming of sports glory. Today, she is a multiple medalist from several tournaments – the latest being her silver medal from the South West Games 2025. Raji shone brilliantly as one of the brightest, most symbolic discoveries of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Southwest Alliance Games—BATSWAG—a sub-tournament of the Games mooted by Dr. Lanre Alfred.
For the umpteenth time, Raji cast her soul into the game. With the lone fire of her right hand, she danced behind the bat, striking the ball through the stiff walls of limitation. In a tournament meant to scout for budding stars to enrich a regional talent pool, Raji showed up excellently, in the full spirit of the timeless saw that even broken wings may fly in the right wind and with the right heft. Raji dazzled the court as she defied the odds, clashing with more able-bodied rivals. She was, and remains, Nigerianness incarnate—tough, spirited, fragrant with promise.
How do you write of such a girl and not be moved? How do you narrate her story without your pen trembling in awe? When she began training in 2021 at the Banana Table Tennis Club in Sango Ota under Coach Funmilayo Oyetayo—herself a torchbearer in Ogun’s tennis circle—it seemed an odd scene. A fragile girl, missing an arm, holding a racket as if it were a wand. But from those first uncertain strokes bloomed a masterpiece. Aishat trained with spunk and vigor. She committed her heart, body and spirit to be transformed. So doing, she hollered her name into the lobes of every tennis court, and the sport bent and paid a listening ear in affection. From the ValueJet Para-Tennis Open to the National Youth Festival in Delta, from Edo to Abuja, her path has been a trail of quiet, consistent brilliance. Silver, bronze, and now again silver at the South West Games 2025—all with one hand, and a heart filled with fire.
What is sport, if not metaphor? And who better than Aishat to embody it? In her, Nigeria must see its own reflection—battered but not broken, denied but not defeated. She is the spirit that hawks wares at traffic lights with hope, the soul that laughs in spite of fuel queues and power outages, the stubborn sapling that sprouts even from cement cracks.
Yet, beyond the poetic reverence, subsists a profound call. The likes of Aishat must not be abandoned to the vagaries of grit and personal sacrifice. Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, her home soil’s steward, must rise to meet this hour. As Ogun State prepares to host the National Sports Festival in a few weeks, what better ambassador for that grand convergence than Aishat Raji? Why not lift her as a flame to light the path for other talents buried in Nigeria’s margins? To lift her is not charity—it is national investment.
To celebrate her is to shift the spotlight from the salacious glare of reality shows like Big Brother Naija—a programme that rewards vulgar exhibitionism with cash prizes and brand endorsements—to an. embodiment of true substance. Nigeria must graduate from glamorizing mediocrity to venerating merit. If we must celebrate our youth, let us celebrate those who break limits, not those who flaunt decadence.
Aishat Raji reminds us of another aching truth—the shameful neglect of para-athletes and persons with disabilities in our sporting ecosystem. At the 2024 Olympics, Nigeria’s paralympic contingent was once again the victim of governmental amnesia. They faced poor preparation, inadequate funding, logistical nightmares, and the psychological bruises of being treated as afterthoughts. And yet, they returned with dignity. How long shall this travesty endure? When will our leaders realize that a nation is only as noble as the way it treats its vulnerable? Aishat’s rise should provoke policy. She is not just a story to be told—she is a strategy to be followed.
Talent is universal, but opportunity is not. And it is here that institutions like the National Sports Commission, the Southwest Development Commission, and private stakeholders must lean in. Tournaments like BATSWAG and its parent, the South West Games, should not be fleeting glories—they must become annual rites, sustained by public-private partnerships, protected from the corrosion of politics, and rooted in communities.
But even this is not enough. For sports, as this writer has long maintained, is but a momentary euphoria. Its value is fleeting, like carnival glitter or New Year fireworks. Today’s gold medalist is tomorrow’s forgotten name, nursing injuries in silence or trading glory for survival. The state must therefore pair sports development with long-term empowerment. Aishat Raji, for all her promise on the court, must also be mentored off the pitch. Her brilliance must be backed with quality education, entrepreneurial training, digital skills, emotional intelligence, and exposure to global citizenship. She must be prepared for the day when her body can no longer obey the racket. She must have more than medals—she must have mastery.
Aishat Raji enchants the tennis court. Not from electric chants or thunderous applause, but from the sheer astonishment of her being. Just 14, she saunters into the Games arena shorn of symmetry but with the sovereign gift of a single right hand that swings like a poet’s plume.
Raji is a product of grit. Her left hand—once part of her whole body—got severed by the cold blade of tragedy in 2014. At the tender age of three, she was hurled from a storey building by her peers, in an act of childhood mischief that turned catastrophic. Consequently, her left arm was amputated.
Through her ordeal, Raji was undeterred, scorning disability and dreaming of sports glory. Today, she is a multiple medalist from several tournaments – the latest being her silver medal from the South West Games 2025. Raji shone brilliantly as one of the brightest, most symbolic discoveries of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Southwest Alliance Games—BATSWAG—a sub-tournament of the Games mooted by Dr. Lanre Alfred.
For the umpteenth time, Raji cast her soul into the game. With the lone fire of her right hand, she danced behind the bat, striking the ball through the stiff walls of limitation. In a tournament meant to scout for budding stars to enrich a regional talent pool, Raji showed up excellently, in the full spirit of the timeless saw that even broken wings may fly in the right wind and with the right heft. Raji dazzled the court as she defied the odds, clashing with more able-bodied rivals. She was, and remains, Nigerianness incarnate—tough, spirited, fragrant with promise.
How do you write of such a girl and not be moved? How do you narrate her story without your pen trembling in awe? When she began training in 2021 at the Banana Table Tennis Club in Sango Ota under Coach Funmilayo Oyetayo—herself a torchbearer in Ogun’s tennis circle—it seemed an odd scene. A fragile girl, missing an arm, holding a racket as if it were a wand. But from those first uncertain strokes bloomed a masterpiece. Aishat trained with spunk and vigor. She committed her heart, body and spirit to be transformed. So doing, she hollered her name into the lobes of every tennis court, and the sport bent and paid a listening ear in affection. From the ValueJet Para-Tennis Open to the National Youth Festival in Delta, from Edo to Abuja, her path has been a trail of quiet, consistent brilliance. Silver, bronze, and now again silver at the South West Games 2025—all with one hand, and a heart filled with fire.
What is sport, if not metaphor? And who better than Aishat to embody it? In her, Nigeria must see its own reflection—battered but not broken, denied but not defeated. She is the spirit that hawks wares at traffic lights with hope, the soul that laughs in spite of fuel queues and power outages, the stubborn sapling that sprouts even from cement cracks.
Yet, beyond the poetic reverence, subsists a profound call. The likes of Aishat must not be abandoned to the vagaries of grit and personal sacrifice. Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, her home soil’s steward, must rise to meet this hour. As Ogun State prepares to host the National Sports Festival in a few weeks, what better ambassador for that grand convergence than Aishat Raji? Why not lift her as a flame to light the path for other talents buried in Nigeria’s margins? To lift her is not charity—it is national investment.
To celebrate her is to shift the spotlight from the salacious glare of reality shows like Big Brother Naija—a programme that rewards vulgar exhibitionism with cash prizes and brand endorsements—to an. embodiment of true substance. Nigeria must graduate from glamorizing mediocrity to venerating merit. If we must celebrate our youth, let us celebrate those who break limits, not those who flaunt decadence.
Aishat Raji reminds us of another aching truth—the shameful neglect of para-athletes and persons with disabilities in our sporting ecosystem. At the 2024 Olympics, Nigeria’s paralympic contingent was once again the victim of governmental amnesia. They faced poor preparation, inadequate funding, logistical nightmares, and the psychological bruises of being treated as afterthoughts. And yet, they returned with dignity. How long shall this travesty endure? When will our leaders realize that a nation is only as noble as the way it treats its vulnerable? Aishat’s rise should provoke policy. She is not just a story to be told—she is a strategy to be followed.
Talent is universal, but opportunity is not. And it is here that institutions like the National Sports Commission, the Southwest Development Commission, and private stakeholders must lean in. Tournaments like BATSWAG and its parent, the South West Games, should not be fleeting glories—they must become annual rites, sustained by public-private partnerships, protected from the corrosion of politics, and rooted in communities.
But even this is not enough. For sports, as this writer has long maintained, is but a momentary euphoria. Its value is fleeting, like carnival glitter or New Year fireworks. Today’s gold medalist is tomorrow’s forgotten name, nursing injuries in silence or trading glory for survival. The state must therefore pair sports development with long-term empowerment. Aishat Raji, for all her promise on the court, must also be mentored off the pitch. Her brilliance must be backed with quality education, entrepreneurial training, digital skills, emotional intelligence, and exposure to global citizenship. She must be prepared for the day when her body can no longer obey the racket. She must have more than medals—she must have mastery.
Because the tragedy of sports is not in losing a match. It is in raising a star only to abandon them in the twilight of their talent. Nigeria has done this too many times. We must not do it again.
One day, Aishat Raji will stand before the world, perhaps at Wimbledon or the Paralympics, not as a token of pity, but as a titan of purpose. She will swing that bat with the grace of a gazelle and the grit of a soldier. The world will gasp. Commentators will scramble to pronounce her name correctly. And behind that moment will be this beginning—this humble path from Crescent International High School in Sango Ota, this sacred ground where Coach Funmilayo Oyetayo taught a one-handed girl to wield dreams like a sword.
Credit:The Nation