A few days ago, I asked what had even happened to our National Stadium in Abuja. Many said it had been overtaken by herdsmen who were using it graze their cattle. My friend @rikkialakija picked me up from home to go see for myself. We spent 2 hours. This is what I saw. Thread!
The main bowl of the stadium is in very good shape. It was solidly constructed. The chairs are not broken but the grass pitch itself is poor. There are people who dutifully trim the edges of the grass daily. They only earn N20,000 per month but are still being owed salaries.
The running tracks around the football pitch are fine. There are no bumps and athletes are using it to train. It’s about 15 years old buy it seems to have been done well from the start. It probably needs to be freshened up in advance of any serious competitions there.
One thing that struck me is the number of young girls that were there training for one thing or the other. I saw many more young girls than young guys. Most are teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18. The drills they were doing were tough, but they all seemed enthusiastic.
See that young girl to my left wearing the Nigeria track jersey? Her name is Rosemary Chukwuma. She’s a Commonwealth bronze medalist. She runs 100 and 200 meters. She’s frighteningly fast. She’s just 16 years old. When I saw her 6-pack, I had to suck in my tummy.
We saw a lot of fire engines that were clearly not functional. Many had flat tyres. On to the swimming pool. The dive pool was dirty. I understand nobody uses it. It would have been better for them to just drain the water, although I don’t know if it’s a collection of rain water.
The main swimming pool is the biggest swimming pool I’ve seen in my life. I’ve seen pools that hotels claim are “Olympic size.” Na lie. It’s relatively clean but @rikkialakija says it needs a bit of chorine. The plastic chairs are fine but the VIP ones are broken. Deservedly!
We also saw people playing volleyball and basketball in various courts. Some of the basketball games were serious competition stuff, with people wearing team colours. Of course, there were people doing brisk business selling secondhand sports kits, food, drinks and ice cream.
Next, we went to see the Velodrome. Magnificent structure but, inside, it was full of thousands of cooking stoves & gas cylinders. I understand that we paid N5 BILLION for them in May 2015, just before the handover of power. They’re still there, abandoned. https://google.com/amp/thenationonlineng.net/jonathan-releases-n5b-to-buy-stoves-for-rural-women/amp/…
I did not see any herdsmen, cattle or snakes. What I saw was hundreds of Nigerians using the magnificent faculties. Some need some TLC but most were in decent shape are are being used daily. Everyone we met were friendly and pleasant. Everyone invited us to try out their sports.
@rikkialakija and I concluded that these are the real Nigerians, not the ones behind phone keypads. The spirit in the place was just refreshing and different. We agreed to go out and mingle more. After two hours, Rikki had to drag me away. Great day out! Thanks, Rikki! End!