At different times, Nigeria has been home to some of the finest sports stadiums on the continent. The country is presently left with one, a journey steadily facilitated by an extreme lack of maintenance culture occasioned by official negligence. CHRISTIAN OKPARA reports that being restricted to one stadium – the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo, which Africa’s football governing body, CAF, and FIFA, rate as the country’s only facility of international standard (in a country with several multi-billion-naira stadiums built for international championships) is a testament to the country’s poor attitude towards sports development.
The Lagos National Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium located in the heart of Lagos State, was a piece of beauty when it was inaugurated in 1972 by the General Yakubu Gowon-led military administration.
Comprising an Olympic-size swimming arena and a multipurpose arena used for football, athletics, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, boxing and rugby, just to mention a few, the stadium at that time snugly fit the description of a national monument.
Designed by Fola Alade Associates in 1970, the 55,000-seater capacity stadium, which was later reduced to 45,000 in 1999, was used as the major sporting facility for the 1973 African Games (AAG), in which the country emerged as champions for the first time. Seven years later, it also hosted the 1980 African Cup of Nations (AFCON), with the men’s senior national football team, then known as the Green Eagles, also winning for the first time.
It was also one of the 1999 FIFA U-20 World Cup venues and later hosted the 2000 AFCON, co-hosted by Ghana and Nigeria. Today, that 53-year-old national monument is a symbol of national shame. To an extent, it also describes the country’s tepid approach to national development.
For a whopping cost of $360 million, the President Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration constructed the National Stadium, Abuja, which was later renamed MKO Abiola Stadium. When it was opened for the 2003 Africa Games, followers of Nigerian sports heaved a sigh of relief that at last, the country had built an arena capable of hosting even the biggest international sporting events. At the peak of its glory, the MKO Abiola Stadium was rated as one of the best in Africa and the most modern facility in sub-Saharan Africa.
Availing the country a world-class alternative to the National Stadium in Lagos, which was then in the initial stages of rot and no longer fit to host big games, was a great source of joy.
Built by German construction giant Julius Berger, the stadium, at its inauguration on April 8, 2003, by President Obasanjo, was ranked among the top 50 most expensive stadiums in the world.
The stadium has Package A and Package B, with Package A comprising an all-covered main bowl with a 60,491-seating capacity. It has other facilities like a presidential suite and viewing area, 56 corporate suites, modern turnstiles, banks, media facilities, two electronic scoreboards, floodlights, and a helipad.
Other appurtenances include a VIP car park, public parking lot, standard practice pitches, a velodrome, shops and kiosks, generators, emergency service units, closed-circuit security cameras, and crowd control steel fencing.
In Package B are an indoor sports hall, a 2,000-gymnasium, tennis courts, handball courts, volleyball courts, a baseball and softball complex, a 3,000-hockey pitch, a 2,000-capacity swimming pool, an artificial lake, fire-fighting equipment, and others.
Julius Berger also constructed the $496 million Godswill Akpabio International Stadium – a 30,000-seater sports stadium located in Uyo, the state capital of Akwa Ibom, between 2012 and 2014.
The architectural masterpiece and a testament to Nigeria’s passion for football was built by the Godswill Akpabio-led administration, and it remains a symbol of pride for the state and the nation.
Importantly, the stadium serves as the home ground of the senior national football team, the Super Eagles, and a centre for various social, cultural, political, and religious events.
Designed with modern aesthetics and functionality in mind, the stadium features state-of-the-art facilities and amenities, and its sleek architecture and well-planned layout contribute to its appeal.
Presently, it is the only stadium where its playing surface meets international standards, ensuring optimal conditions for football matches. This high-quality pitch enhances the playing experience for athletes, hence the nod given to it by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and FIFA.
Abundant talent amid a glut of non-functional stadiums to nurture
NIGERIA is universally acclaimed as a nation with enormous human resources capable of dominating most aspects of human endeavours if the right approaches to development are deployed. In science, the arts, and sports, the country has produced many talented people who have contributed immensely to the advancement of humanity.
While Nigerians are notable among inventors in the fast-changing technological world, their creatives, including musicians, have redefined the way the world sees music such that the country’s stars are now playing on big international stages, and carting home international industry awards like the Grammys and the World Music Awards, etc.
In sports, the country’s athletes, or sportsmen of Nigerian descent, have shown so much proficiency that many international meetings are incomplete without at least an athlete with links to the country among those on the podium.
However, while the athletes with links to Nigeria are doing well in their adopted countries, those who have stuck to the country, and ply their trade in-country still find it difficult to reach the zenith of their career due mainly to a blend of inadequacies, especially the lack of facilities and the right environment needed to foster professional growth.
It is acknowledged that for an athlete to develop and become world-class, such an athlete must be exposed to world-class facilities at the take-off stage of his career and therefore will not be fazed when he is presented with the opportunity to compete in such facilities at world meets.
In a country with only one approved international standard stadium, the nation’s budding athletes start their careers with the disadvantage of not having anywhere to build on their natural talents. They are forced to train in substandard facilities, which do not help them develop their skills and become their best.
Of the country’s over 40 stadiums, only about 12 are good enough to be rehabilitated for international competitions. They are the National Stadium, Lagos; MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja; Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu; U.J. Esuene Stadium, Calabar; Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna, and Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt.
Others are Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium, Bauchi; Sam Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin; Liberty Stadium, Ibadan; Adamasingba Stadium, Ibadan; Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos, and the Adokie Aimiesiamaka Stadium, Port Harcourt, while the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo, remains the only stadium that is in good state to host international championships.
In its recent inspection of Nigerian stadiums, the African football governing body, CAF, adjudged all the facilities in Nigeria, except the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo, as unfit for FIFA and its competitions. The consequence is that every international football match involving Nigeria is played at the stadium in Uyo. So, even with all the facilities scattered across the country, Nigeria is currently a one-stadium nation, and risks being banned from hosting international competitions if anything happens to the Godswill Akpabio Stadium.
Legacy of wastage as bane of sports development
NIGERIA has hosted the African Games twice and the African Cup of Nations (twice), as well as the FIFA U-20 World Cup and the FIFA U-17 World Cup competitions, with the related international bodies congratulating the country for the sterling state of the facilities provided for these competitions. So, what went wrong?
Stakeholders point at the country’s attitude to maintaining its facilities as the bane of its sports development.
For instance, since the country hosted the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2009, the National Stadium, Lagos, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna, Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu and the Liberty Stadium in Ibadan have been left to rot and decay by successive governments, which paid lip service to the facilities’ maintenance.
A former Sports Minister, Sunday Dare, tried to rehabilitate some of these facilities with his novel adopt-a-facility programme, which sought to get the private sector’s buy-in in rehabilitating the major stadiums.
With the programme, Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, provided the funds for the rehabilitation of the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja, while Chief Kessington Adebutu, also known as Baba Ijebu, took up the rehabilitation of the National Stadium, Lagos.
However, while the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja, was renovated and opened for use by the national teams and the sports federations, only the playing pitch and tartan tracks, as well as the floodlight of the National Stadium, Lagos, were put in order per the agreement that the Federal Government had with Chief Adebutu.
The Federal Government was expected to put the stands, dressing rooms and other appurtenances of the National Stadium in Lagos in order. But that has not been done. This means the facility cannot be used because it is still 80 per centin bad shape.
Worse still, the MKO Abiola Stadium, refurbished less than two years ago, has gone bad again due to official neglect. The Guardian gathered from officials of the National Sports Commission (NSC), which recently replaced the Federal Ministry of Sports as the official organ managing the country’s sports, that efforts were being made to put the facility in order.
During a visit to the National Stadium, Lagos, some facility officials told The Guardian that they were still waiting for the NSC Chairman, Shehu Dikko, to begin rehabilitation as he promised when he visited the stadium earlier this year.
One of the contractors who worked on the National Stadium, Surulere, who pleaded anonymity, said that they were forced to allow athletes to use the tartan tracks to keep them in shape as advised by engineers who worked on the facility.
“The athletes come here to train on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from early morning to about 11.00 a.m. When they leave, we lock up the place to secure the facility.”
On the floodlights, he said: “Since we hired a generator to test them after their installation, we have not put it on again because there has not been power in the stadium for over two years. But we are hopeful that the NSC will soon work on the other parts of the stadium to make it ready to host events like it used to do in the 1990s.”
One of the tenants, whose office is located inside the stadium, told The Guardian that the facility is gradually being ceded to private sector operators, who plan to use sections of the stadium for their businesses.
“We don’t know the type of agreement that the defunct Ministry of Sports signed with some private sector operators, but we understand that an organisation plans to build a mall, a filling station, and other facilities in the cooperative part of the stadium. It is unfortunate that they have vandalised the stadium and even the roof of the stadium was removed by the former minister, who said that he would replace it with an aluminium roof worth over N300 million, has not been done.
“They are gradually concessioning the stadium, ceding it to private individuals part by part. When the former Minister, Sunday Dare, demolished structures in the stadium, we were told that the action was taken to restore the arena to its original state. But the stadium has now been left to rot. The stadium has not had light for over two years and most of the electric cables have been stolen by vandals. Worse still, there is no budget for the maintenance of the few functional parts of the stadium. Whatever maintenance that goes on in the stadium is done with the little money that is generated from the gates and from organisations like churches and groups, that use some of the facilities in the stadium.”
The major problem affecting the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja, is the poor security arrangement that allows thieves to vandalise its facilities, some stakeholders have said.
Only a few months ago, vandals invaded the stadium, carting away electrical cables and plunging the stadium into a total blackout. The criminals had unfettered access to the facility’s cable because the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) disconnected the stadium from the national grid following a backlog of unpaid debts to the power distribution company.
A source at the MKO Abiola Stadium said that when it was opened in 2003, the cost of maintenance by Julius Berger was N1.3 billion, “but if that is to be done today, about triple that amount is needed. Sadly, as the facility is denied maintenance, the amount needed to fix things afterwards keeps soaring.
“Now, the stadium has been left for years without proper maintenance. Unfortunately, we are doing only minor repair works and no comprehensive maintenance for a long time.”
Another issue affecting the stadium is its location, which makes it difficult for sportsmen and other stakeholders to make use of its facilities. Apart from the national teams and the sports federations, most other organisations that should have been using the facility for their activities, shy away from the stadium due to its location in the city’s outskirts.
“If people are not using the facilities, they will rot and eventually decay, it is as simple as that. The stadium is not like the Lagos arena, which is close to the people and always attracts people that are looking for where to exercise, or relax,” a sports consultant, Theodore Chukwuemeka, told The Guardian.
Chukwuemeka, former Spartans of Owerri, P&T Vasco Da Gama of Enugu, and JIB Rocks of Jos star, said that he aligns with the recent declaration by the NSC Chairman, Mallam Shehu Dikko, that the Federal Government would go all out to rehabilitate the existing facilities, and also build new ones across the country.
Dikko recently said that the Federal Government would modernise Nigeria’s stadium infrastructure, noting that President Bola Tinubu-led administration plans to build at least one FIFA-compliant stadium in each of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, thereby decentralising sports infrastructure and enabling more Nigerians to access world-class facilities.
This, he said, would be done through a sustainable Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model that would leverage Nigeria’s sports venues to generate revenue, providing a means for self-sustaining maintenance.
The federal government allocated N95 billion to the National Sports Commission in the 2025 budget, with N0.9 billion allocated for personnel, N14 billion for overhead, and N79.7 billion for capital expenditure.
Dikko said the allocation, which is the highest given to sports in over 30 years, would come in handy in the NSC’s plans to rejuvenate the sector’s facilities.
As commendable as the plans are, Chukwuemeka advised the NSC boss to start rehabilitating the existing facilities first to give the country different choices on where to play its games before delving into the construction of new facilities.
He said: “The NSC chairman’s position is a tenured political appointment, which may not last more than four years at the most. We know that government is a continuum, as they say, but we have learnt that so many projects have been abandoned by successive administrations because those projects were not started by them.
“The current NSC leadership will serve the country well by ensuring that all facilities belonging to the federal government are put in proper shape. We can then start building new ones with the funds mapped out in such a way that no incoming administration will stop their completion.”
The Guardian learnt that the federal government has approved the upgrade of the MKO Abiola Stadium with the construction of a 200-room hostel in Package B of the stadium.
On the adopt-a-facility programme of the Sunday Dare regime, Kola Daniel, who is one of the media aides to the NSC Director General, Bukola Olopade, said that the current leadership of the commission is working round the clock to revive it, adding: “The NSC is in talks with some patriotic Nigerians, and I believe that in a few weeks, the partners will be unveiled.”
Daniel said that plans are on to rehabilitate the National Stadium, Lagos, as “it is captured in the 2025 budget. Work will begin on the facilities across the country when the budgeted fund is released by the Federal Government.”
Local competitions impacted by decrepit facilities
APART from international competitions, most stadiums in the country are also unworthy of hosting even local competitions like the Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) and the President Federation Cup.
Recently, the NPFL board barred Niger Tornadoes of Minna and Lobi Stars of Makurdi from using their home turfs due to the substandard nature of their playing pitches and other facilities. Consequently, Niger Tornadoes Football Club now play its home games at the Lafia Township Stadium, in Nasarawa State, while Lobi Stars Football Club have moved from Lafia to Bauchi and now hosts their home matches at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu.
At the state level, the situation is no different as stadiums are daily falling into dysfunctional state thereby worsening the country’s infrastructure deficit.
For instance, the 30,000-capacity Jolly Nyame Stadium, a multimillion-naira sports facility in Jalingo, Taraba State, is one of the dilapidated facilities that has fallen into disrepair and is now overrun by cows due to government neglect.
The stadium was once rated as the best in the North East geopolitical zone, but years of neglect have reduced it to a grazing ground for herders, who rear their cattle unchallenged on the pitch.
In the past, the Jolly Nyame Stadium hosted matches involving the defunct Taraba United and its female counterpart, but it currently passes as a playground for children and cows.
Another facility that has baffled stakeholders is the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, which was acknowledged as the first Video Assistant Referee (VAR)-compliant facility in the country when it was opened for the 2020 edition of the National Sports Festival.
The 20,000-capacity facility at the time it was handed over to the Edo State government had a covered sporting arena with FIFA-approved natural turf for international football games and refitted running tracks.
Connected to the Ossiomo Power Project to supply regular electricity for night matches, the stadium’s tennis and squash courts were also refurbished and standardised, while a new Olympic-size swimming pool, and indoor suspended gymnasium- the first of its kind in Nigeria were added to the structure.
However, apart from the National Sports Festival, a 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifier between the Super Eagles and the Leone Stars of Sierra Leone, league games involving Edo State-owned club, Bendel Insurance, and the yearly Betsy Obaseki Women’s Football Tournament, the stadium has been largely idle.
Recently, a mast at the facility collapsed during heavy rainfall, killing one person, and the incumbent government was quick to blame the incident on the “poor job done by the immediate past administration.”
On their part, observers insist that the idle state of the stadium constitutes an albatross to it as most of its facilities are not being put to proper use. “Here is a stadium with some of the most modern facilities that you can think of, but they are turning it into a white elephant project by not utilising these facilities,” a concerned stakeholder, Monday Edoseghe, said.
“The VAR facility is among the best you can find anywhere in Africa, but Nigeria has not yet adopted VAR and so that facility is there rotting away. I will not be surprised if they find out that most of its parts have been stolen by the time the need for its usage arises,” he said.
A very reliable source at the NFF, while reacting to developments at the stadium in Benin, told The Guardian that the federation discountenances the stadium for its games because it is not big enough to contain the huge crowd that usually follows national team games.
“There are other issues with the stadium, which I cannot readily say for now because I don’t have the details. However, if the Edo State government wants the NFF to return to the stadium, certain things must be put in place for that to happen,” the NFF chief said.
But a member of the Edo State Sports Commission, who also pleaded anonymity, countered the NFF source, and told The Guardian that the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium is in top shape and capable of hosting any international match.
He said that Nigerians should ask the NFF why it has not presented the Sam Ogbemudia Stadium for consideration, adding: “The Ogbemudia Stadium’s grass is second to none…It is the only stadium in Nigeria with effective VAR facilities.
CAF approved the stadium when Bendel Insurance played in the continent and the place was commended by Moroccans when they came to play there. The stadium used to host Nigerian games, but all we hear now is that Godswill Akpabio Stadium is the only one fit to host CAF games.”
Also speaking on the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Chairman, of Edo State Sports Commission, Desmond Amadin Enabulele, affirmed that the facility is one of the best in the West African region, saying that it has not hosted national team games because nobody has pushed for that.
He said: “The first thing we want to do is to get the NFF to host Super Falcons games in Benin so that everybody will see the fantastic state of the facility. We are among the few stadiums in Nigeria from where matches can be broadcast live because of the state-of-the-art facility and our pitch is as good as those you can see in Europe.
When the NFF or CAF comes to inspect our facilities, this issue of being a one-stadium nation will end.”
