The National Stadium, Lagos is still waiting for rescue as presidential approval to allow the Lagos State government to restore it to its old glory, is delayed

By Benprince Ezeh

THE National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, was built by the General Yakubu Gowon military administration in 1972 as a 55,000 capacity sporting facility. It was later redesigned in 1999 to a 45,000 capacity in order to meet FIFA requirements for the hosting right of the 1999, Junior World Cup. Till date, the highest number of fans that have sat in the stadium’s main bowl on a particular occasion is 85,000. That was when Nigeria trounced Algeria 3-0 to emerge winners of the 1980 African Cup of Nations.

In the height of its glory, the National Stadium, Surulere, was the nation’s number one center of sporting excellence and it has hosted numerous high profile sporting events. It hosted the 1973 All Africa Games with Nigeria emerging the overall winners. The nation’s senior national soccer team, the then Green Eagles (now Super Eagles), became a household name in African and, indeed, world soccer at the stadium when it became the slaughter ground of many soccer teams.

Unfortunately, things began to fall apart in 2004 when the stadium started to suffer neglect, perhaps due to the construction of a new national stadium in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

Today, all its facilities are thoroughly shattered and in dismay. The stadium that was once a national monument has deteriorated into an eyesore to the embarrassment of a nation that is increasingly becoming incapable of maintaining its national assets. In the past one decade, the facilities have degenerated from providing skeletal sports function to a religious events centre and now, a den of social misfits called area boys, who use it as a launch-pad for attacking innocent citizens living in the area.

Worried by the social implications of the existence of such a huge facility abandoned in the heart of his state, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode requested the federal government to hand over the National Stadium, Surulere, to the state, promising to transform it to a world standard. While Solomon Dalung, minister of Sports, promised to give the request a favourable consideration, no concrete response has been received from the federal government.

In an interview with RealNews, Charles Ibeziako, coach of Raptors Basket Ball Academy, said: “Honestly speaking, you know Nigerians love football in this country so everything goes, not organised and it hurts me a lot. The stadium is not organised, we have a lot of football academies and you can’t have any academy and be training your boys on the road sides.

“In a big stadium like this, you are supposed to have shops or restaurants where you can eat, it’s allowed. There’s no problem about that. My problem with them is the nuisance moving around, sleeping around without doing anything, that’s a criminal thing,” Ibeziako said.

When asked of solutions to bring the glory days back to the stadium and avoid the ills going on in the stadium, he said: “The most important thing is that people are in charge, senior managers, managers and the security agents, these are the people that are suppose to organise it.

“If you’re really a coach that went to the National Institute of Sports, NIS, before entering with your team, you should be registered and not just come and train with no identification.”

Lawrence Fayemi, Prime kick Taekwondo Academy chief instructor and secretary general of professional Taekwondo Coaches Association of Nigeria, said that one of the problems facing the country is the administrative and the people controlling it.

“So many times we have said people should not be playing ball here on the road sides, and they will not listen, that is even the least of it because if you go to the back of the main pitch, you will even see food vendors and beer selling shops, which doesn’t suppose to be.

“The truth is that there is no money to maintain the stadium, even to clean the stadium or cut the grasses, the management will say there is no money. So they allow all these things to be happening because they want to generate money for the upkeep of the stadium.

“Some religious groups have turned the beautiful pitches to crusade ground, trampling on grasses. Although, they claim to pay money for the use of the place, which the management uses to maintain the place, such events are not what stadia are meant for,” Fayemi said.

Segun Akinlotan, the liaison officer in charge of the National Stadium, in an interview said that the management was waiting for approval to hand over the stadium to Lagos State.

Besides, he said he had been warning athletes to always go home after their training and not to turn the complex to their places of residence. He said, “it is unacceptable’’ for athletes to be sleeping around the complex after their routine training.

Akinlotan insisted the complex is meant for sporting activities and not a residential place. “We take cognisance that some athletes come from far places and that is why the stadium is opened as early as 6.00 a.m to allow them to start training so that they can go home.

“The management of the complex is saddled with the responsibility of enforcing the rules and regulation; so we expect users of these facilities to act in accordance with the rules. We need maximum cooperation of sportsmen and women who use the facilities for their training not to turn the place to their residences,’’ he said.

– Aug. 29, 2018 @ 14:40 GMT |