Top 10 WAFCON All-Time Goalscorers: Nkwocha, Oshoala and Africa’s Greatest Finishers

Since 1998, the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) has been Africa’s proving ground for its most ruthless finishers. Thirteen editions in, one nation has dominated the goal charts almost as thoroughly as they have dominated the trophy cabinet: Nigeria.

Eight of the names on this list wore green and white at some point. Here’s the definitive ranking of the players who have terrorized African defences at the continent’s flagship women’s tournament.

1. Perpetua Nkwocha (Nigeria) — 34 goals

There isn’t a debate here. Nkwocha isn’t just the greatest goalscorer in WAFCON history, she’s in a different league entirely.

Between 2002 and 2014, she racked up 34 goals across six editions, finishing as top scorer an astonishing four times (2002, 2004, 2006, 2010) — a feat no one else has managed more than twice.

Her peak came in 2010, where she scored 11 goals in a single tournament, including two hat-tricks — still the highest individual haul in one edition. Throw in a four-goal final performance against Cameroon in 2004, and you have a case closed a long time ago. Five WAFCON titles, four African Women’s Footballer of the Year awards. The standard.

2. Genoveva Añonman (Equatorial Guinea) — 14 goals

The only player who isn’t Nigerian anywhere near the top of this list, and for good reason.

Añonman was the spearhead of Equatorial Guinea’s brief but very real era of continental dominance, firing them to titles in both 2008 and 2012 — winning the Golden Boot and Player of the Tournament in the latter. The era when she reigned is a stark reminder that Nigeria’s throne hasn’t always uncontested.

3. Desire Oparanozie (Nigeria) — 11 goals

Oparanozie’s most notable attribute was efficiency in the biggest moments. She scored the goals that won Nigeria the 2014 title in Namibia and finished as top scorer that year.

She also stayed a reliable source of goals across multiple editions through the 2010s. Oparanozie was a genuine talisman for the Super Falcons during her playing years.

4. Mercy Akide-Udoh (Nigeria) — 11 goals

She is one of the pioneers of Nigerian women’s football. Akide-Udoh’s goals came in the tournament’s earlier, rougher-edged years.

It was her goals that helped to cement the Super Falcons’ dynasty and status as perennial queens before the rest of the continent had properly caught up.

5. Veronica Phewa (South Africa) — 10 goals

Banyana Banyana’s history at WAFCON is inseparable from Phewa’s finishing. She remains South Africa’s most prolific WAFCON striker of all time.

It was her era that laid the groundwork for the golden generation that would eventually deliver the country’s first title in 2022.

6. Asisat Oshoala (Nigeria) — 10 goals

The most recognisable name in African women’s football today, and still adding to her tally. Although her tournament debut was in 2014, Oshoala announced herself at WAFCON 2016 with four goals in a single group-stage rout of Mali.

That made her become the first player since Nkwocha in 2004 to score four in one match. She would eventually finish that tournament with the Golden Boot on six goals.

Oshoala is a six-time African Women’s Footballer of the Year, has four WAFCON titles to her name, and is still banging in big goals for Nigeria well over a decade into her career.

7. Cynthia Uwak (Nigeria) — 10 goals

Uwak is often overlooked in modern conversations, but she was absolutely central to Nigeria’s mid-2000s dominance.

Uwak scored six goals at WAFCON 2006 alone, finishing runner-up to Nkwocha in that year’s scoring charts, and won back-to-back African Women’s Footballer of the Year awards in 2006 and 2007.

She plied her trade across Finland, Germany and France, and was one of the trailblazers for Nigerian players moving to Europe long before it became the norm.

8. Gloria Chinasa (Equatorial Guinea) — 9 goals

Her Igbo name surely means that she has Nigerian blood flowing through her veins. Chinasa was raised in Enugu, but she made the bold switch to represent Equatorial Guinea from 2005 onward — and promptly helped inflict damage on her country of birth.

She scored twice in the 2008 final rout of South Africa and was central to both of Equatorial Guinea’s continental titles. Interestingly, two of her nine WAFCON goals came against Nigeria.

9. Stella Mbachu (Nigeria) — 8 goals

A fixture of Nigerian women’s football from the late 1990s into the early 2010s, Mbachu scored in the very first WAFCON final in 1998 and was named Best Player at the 2010 tournament.

She had 88 caps to her name, with 20 international goals, and a career that helped establish the culture of ruthlessness Nigeria’s forwards have carried ever since.

10. Ghizlane Chebbak (Morocco) — 8 goals

She is the active outlier on this list, and the clearest sign that Nigeria’s monopoly on WAFCON’s scoring charts is finally being tested.

Chebbak has won back-to-back Golden Boots, with three goals in 2022 and five more in the 2024 edition. She has the first WAFCON finals hat-trick since Oshoala’s in 2018.

At 35 and still Morocco’s captain heading into the 2026 tournament, the reigning CAF Player of the Year is the one non-Nigerian with a real chance of climbing several spots on this list before she’s done.