Fencing Competitions in Nigeria

Checked 30 September 2026

Lagos 2026: the Commonwealth comes to Nigeria

In August 2026 Nigeria became the first African nation to stage the senior Commonwealth Fencing Championships, at Rugby School Nigeria in Eko Atlantic City, Lagos. Around 20 nations competed over six days. India topped the table and Nigeria finished fourth with 1 gold, 5 silver and 18 bronze, including Nigeria’s first international gold for 17-year-old Oghenegaren Osievwa-Thompson and a wheelchair fencing programme that had started only three months earlier.

African Championships

Lagos hosted the 23rd African Fencing Championships in June 2025, where Nigeria’s women’s épée team (Somtochukwu Eribenne, Sara Idongesit and Adebodunrin Thomas) won the country’s first-ever team match at the championships and finished fifth, and Oluwafolayemi Akinyosoye beat Olympic silver medallist Fares Ferjani of Tunisia on his way to the sabre quarter-finals. At the 2026 championships in Abidjan, Inkosi Brou finished seventh in men’s sabre.

From our archive

Competitions in our archive

Fencing is one of the young sports in Nigeria and the federation aim at making it one of the competitive sports in the country, and to make it possible, have participated/are participating in various tournaments in the national level including in Africa and globally. Some of the sports competition includes;

National competitions:

• 2nd Interschool Fencing Competition hosted by Nigeria Fencing Federation on 3rd to 10th of December 2016 at French School Victoria Island Lagos, Nigeria

International Tournaments:

• All-African Games of September 2015 held in Brazzaville, Congo
• Junior and Cadet African Fencing Championship held from 26th of February to the 5th of March 2018 at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos, Nigeria
• Grand Prix on 18th May 2018 in Shanghai, China
• Tournoi Satellite in May 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark

Other Competitions includes:

• Championnats d’Afrique on the 5th June 2018 in Tunis, Tunisia
• Championnats d’Afrique on the 8th June 2018 in Tunis, Tunisia

Checked 30 September 2026

Nigeria at the Commonwealth Games and African Games

Fencing was a Commonwealth Games sport only from 1950 to 1970, and no Nigerian won a medal. Since then fencers have had their own Commonwealth Fencing Championships, which Lagos hosted in 2026. At the African Games, fencing was held in 2015 and 2019 without a Nigerian medal, and it was not on the Accra programme.

The next African Games are in Cairo, Egypt, from 20 January to 7 February 2027. See the full medal stories on our Commonwealth Games and African Games pages.