B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G! Federal Government renames Abuja National Stadium after Abiola

 

• It’s a befitting gesture to Africa’s Pillar of Sports – Mitchell Obi, AIPS Africa president

 

BY KAZIE UKO

The Federal Government has renamed the Abuja National Stadium to Moshood Abiola Stadium in honour of the hero of June 12 1993 presidential election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola.

The Abuja National Stadium, like the one before it in Lagos, is currently abandoned and its facilities needing major renovation work.

President Muhammadu Buhari announced the renaming today in his speech to the nation as part of events to mark the inaugural June 12 Democracy Day celebration in Nigeria.

The President’s announcement even though received warm applause from the crowd at the Eagle Square, venue of the event, did not quite come as a surprise for many Nigerians had clamoured for that honour to be done to Chief Abiola, popularly referred to as Africa’s Pillar of Sports.

“It’s a good one,” an obviously excited Mitchell Obi, International Sports Press Association (AIPS) Africa president, said.

“Although it’s coming late to a man who had a personal commitment to the building of the stadium, it’s a befitting gesture to Africa’s Pillar of Sports,” he added.

Obi, an influential and highly respected journalist, particularly sports journalism, advised the Federal Government to make the honour more effective by restoring the national edifice to its original state of glory.

Said he, “For this gesture to be enduring, that stadium will need a total refurbishment to the standard MKO Abiola would have wanted. It will be nice if the Federal Government restores it to its original state, when it was just built.”

He described the current state of abandonment of the stadium and others like it to Nigeria’s culture of lack of maintenance of public institutions and infrastructure.

“It’s a reflection of the decadence, miserable and dysfunctional attitude to maintenance which we have elevated to a culture,” he summed up regrettably.