Nigeria's invitation to send the female team to the games followed the poor response of the countries, which had earlier qualified for the games.

Nigeria was runners-up to Cote d'Ivoire in the zonal qualifiers held in Burkina Faso under the auspices of the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (SCSA) Zone three in February.

"There was supposed to be one qualifier from each zone but few countries indicated interest in sending their female teams to Algeria. A decision was then taken to invite the runners-up from the zonal qualifiers," Ezeala said.

The male had earlier qualified.

Nigeria will face Egypt, Congo and Tunisia in the preliminaries of the men's event while Cameroon, Congo, Kenya and Nigeria are in the same group in the female category.

Nigeria's male team finished third in the 8th edition of the games held in Abuja in 2003 while the females were fourth.