It is OURPIANO now: Nigeria, South Africa engage in hilarious online tiff after AFCON semi

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 8 – Musician Tyla’s song ‘water’ was the background music all through Wednesday night, as Nigerians online celebrated their victory over South Africa in the semi-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

Earlier in the day, pre-match, the South African musician was being celebrated by her countrymates for winning a grammy award, and this had been used as one of the taunting tools in the build up to the match, as a battle between SA’s genre of Music, Amapiano, and Nigeria’s Afrobeats laid the foundation for the fixture in Abidjan.

That Tyla had won a grammy with her viral song and Nigeria’s world acclaimed musicians had not, was basis that South Africa would run over Nigeria on the football field, and storm the final of the AFCON.

But this turned out in the reverse, and a hilarious twitter war erupted, obviously with the Nigerians on top of it, after they won on penalties.

It was Stanley Nwabali, a player who plies his trade in South Africa with Chippa United, that won the day as he saved two penalties to hand the Super Eagles victory.

The South Africans had pre-match called Nigeria a ‘generator republic’, teasing them for the constant power cuts in the country, but at the end of the day, it was the men from West Africa that won the night.

“We have beaten them on the field, and Tyla is now ours. We own them. It is now OURPIANO,” one user on social medial platform X, formerly Twitter, posted, receiving thousands of Retweets.

“Use am grammy win AFCON,” another posted.

Here are some of the hilarious reactions for the victory, that was centered around nothing on the pitch but the entertainment off it.