On 7 February 2024, the Super Eagles arrived for their AFCON semi-final against South Africa with Ola Aina carrying a speaker on his head. The song blasting out of it was Austino Milado's “Super Eagles Carry Go”, by then more than two decades old. CAF posted the clip on TikTok. Nigeria won 4-2 on penalties that night.
| Artist | Austino Milado, Lagos-based gyration singer |
| Best-known song | Super Eagles Carry Go, also called Walele |
| Produced and released | 2001 and January 2002, per the artist's official channels |
| Other Eagles songs | Nigeria Carry Go, Na We Be De Champions, Super Eagles Flying High, Super Eagles Dodorima, Super Eagles Reloaded |
| Dodorima | Released ahead of the 2018 World Cup |
| Modern revival | Players' arrival before the AFCON semi-final, 7 February 2024 |
| Where to listen | Spotify, Apple Music, Audiomack, Deezer and his YouTube channel |
The man behind Walele
BellaNaija, introducing his single “Phone Call” in February 2012, described Austino Milado as a Lagos-based singer, producer and MC who wrote and performed the Super Eagles theme song and played regularly at the Calabar Carnival. He has also worked on Nollywood soundtracks.
His real name and date of birth are not confirmed by any reliable source. We have left them out.
The song's own timeline is clearer. His official YouTube channel and Audiomack page both say “Super Eagles Carry Go” was produced in 2001 and released in January 2002, the year of the Nations Cup in Mali and the World Cup in Korea and Japan. Pulse Nigeria recalled a video that traced the Eagles' victories across several tournaments. Gyration was the sound of the moment. Drums, call and response, a chorus a whole bar could shout.
More songs followed.
A tooXclusive feature listed “Nigeria Carry Go”, “Na We Be De Champions” and “Super Eagles Flying High” as his next football records. “Super Eagles Dodorima” came before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, produced by PMYNOR and mixed by Don Adah, and the artist described it as trap mixed with gyration to motivate the team. During AFCON 2023 he released “Super Eagles Reloaded”, an update carrying the current squad's names, according to Okayafrica.
Recognition never matched the airplay. Legit.ng reported his account on 10 February 2024. In a video shared by storyteller Lucky Udu, Milado said neither the team nor the Nigeria Football Federation had ever acknowledged him. He said he contacted the NFF's marketing manager in 2002 and was threatened with legal action for using the Super Eagles brand without permission. He now works in real estate.
Three days before that report, his song had walked the Eagles into a semi-final.
Stadiums, bars and drums
Nobody launched it officially. Okayafrica noted that television, radio and bars played the song before and during games. That is how a fan record becomes a ritual.
It stuck.
Anyone who has spent a match night in a busy football viewing centre knows the pattern. The anthem goes on before kick-off. It returns after a win, on a loop. The Bounce, writing during AFCON 2023, called it a classic that fans have chanted for generations, and Pulse said it remains a favourite of the supporters' club at big tournaments.
That club brings its own soundtrack. In April 2021 the Guardian reported that the Nigeria Football Supporters Club, led by national chairman Rev. Samuel Ikpea, received ten drums and six trumpets from a member, and Ikpea said they would help cheer the national teams at continental and global competitions.
FIFA disagreed. At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil it barred the club's drums and trumpets, and then president Rafiu Ladipo protested that “if you separate music from football, there is nothing left for the fans”.
Pulse also recalls a supporters' chant adapted from John Lennon's “Give Peace a Chance”. For the songs CAF commissioned itself, see our guide to AFCON official songs.
Where to listen legally
We no longer host an audio file of the song, and we do not publish lyrics. Austino Milado's own YouTube channel carries the Walele video, which has passed 800,000 views. His catalogue, including “Super Eagles Dodorima”, “Super Eagles Flying High” and “Super Eagles Reloaded”, is on Spotify, Apple Music, Audiomack and Deezer.
Official streams pay the artist. Ripped MP3s do not.
Our view
Few Nigerian football songs outlive the teams that inspired them. This one has gone from the 2002 squad to Aina's. When it mattered in Côte d'Ivoire, the players picked a fan's homemade anthem whose author says he was threatened rather than thanked, and a public word of credit from the federation, more than twenty years late, would cost it absolutely nothing at all. For the other end of the spectrum, see our list of World Cup official songs from every edition.
This article was most recently revised and updated 59 seconds ago
