Governor Uba Sani has fulfilled a 30-year-old promise made to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold medalists by giving them plots of land and naming streets after three of them from Kaduna State.
Speaking to journalists after inspecting the ongoing Ahmadu Bello Stadium project on Tuesday, Daniel Amokachi recalled that in 1996, when the Dream Team won the Olympic gold medal, federal and state governments made promises that were never redeemed.
He disclosed that the governor gave him, Garba Lawal, and Emmanuel Babayaro plots of land 30 years after they were promised, adding that he also directed that streets be named after those who were not so immortalised.
Amokachi, a renowned football manager and former professional player, said they lacked words to thank the Governor for his kind gestures and his promise to reward veteran footballers and coaches in their lifetimes duly.
Another former professional footballer and ex-general manager of Kaduna United Football Club, Mr Lawal, described the Ahmadu Bello Stadium as a world-class stadium that will meet FIFA standards when completed.
‘’Now, Super Eagles will not have to go to Uyo to train. Now, this one is right here at my doorstep. It’s a wonderful project, and by the Grace of God, we shall come and unveil it by November,’’ he added.
Another Olympic gold medalist, Mr Babayaro, noted that the governor assembled the entire football family of Kaduna and football is thriving again “like we used to know it’’.
‘’Coming to the stadium and seeing the edifice and the very amazing work that is going on here, I can not but admit that he is indeed a political conundrum,’’ the former goalkeeper added.
While thanking the Governor for fulfilling a 30-year-old promise, he recalled that ‘’the first time that Garba Lawal called me and sent me the papers for the land, I doubted it’’.
‘’The next thing that came to my mind was that maybe they needed us to come for one elaborate event and use it for some political whatever. But guess what, nothing of such came up. ’That means, he gave us those lands because he is that awesome. He did not say that ‘I am giving this land, come and say thank you on TV or come and do one political campaign or the other’,” he added.
Responding, the governor thanked the football veterans, including coaches and administrators, for contributing to sports and football development in Kaduna.
He added, ‘’Kaduna is the leading footballing state in Nigeria. We have produced more stars that have gone out of the country and made their marks globally.’
‘’As a government, it is our responsibility to bring back the glory of Kaduna State in the world of sports. The last time that any CAF football tournament was played in this stadium was in 2016, when the Super Eagles played against Egypt.”
According to him, the condition of Ahmadu Bello Stadium has deteriorated so badly that he had to reach out to President Bola Tinubu, requesting that the sports facility be handed over to Kaduna.
‘’I made it very clear to him that I will demolish the stadium, which had a 16,000 seating capacity and was built in 1964. I disclosed to him that in the whole of Nigeria, there is only one CAF-standard football stadium. That is the one at Uyo with 31,000 capacity.
‘’But today, I am happy to say that Ahmadu Bello Stadium, when completed, will be 33,000 capacity,’’ he said, adding that its pitch will be a hybrid of grass and synthetic.
‘’When completed, Ahmadu Bello Stadium will be the only stadium in Nigeria with a FIFA-standard pitch. Only last week, I was reading the number of stadiums in Africa that are CAF-standard. In Nigeria, there is only one stadium. When you are talking of FIFA-standard, we don’t have any, not even the Uyo stadium,” the governor explained.
He pointed out that Kaduna is investing heavily in sporting facilities because football generates significant revenue.
‘’In the last World Cup that was hosted in the United States, the country made about $20 to $24 billion, in terms of hotel accommodation, transportation and hospitality generally.
‘’Only recently, Morocco hosted the CAF/AFCON tournament, and from what we have seen, the country was also able to get at least $1.4 billion from all the different regions where the event took place,’’ he added.