To effectively accomplish his campaign promises made to people of the state during the electioneering campaign of the last General Elections, the governor of Kano State, Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf last week presented a budget of N350 billion for 2024 to the state House of Assembly.
The budget which the governor tagged as “Budget of Restoration and Transformation” said would fund the seven cardinals of his administration’s agenda that include human capital development, promoting welfare, providing security of lives and property and infrastructure development.
The rest of the agenda is food security and creation of job opportunities for our population.
Under infrastructure development, I was made to understand that the governor has plans to totally renovate the Sani Abacha and Kano Pillars stadiums which poor maintenance have turned them to be something else
.
The governor also has other plans too for sports transformation which made him to include the building of four new stadiums in all the four newly created emirate councils created by the previous administrations namely: Rano, Karaye, Gaya and Bichi emirate councils.
Honestly, nearly all the stakeholders of sports in the state are very happy and impressed with the governor’s disclosure because of his plans for sports in the state which are long overdue.
The renovation of the two stadia: Sani Abacha and Kano Pillars is a good development because the duo are all in a sorry state requiring massive and total overhaul to answer their names and serve the purposes they were created for.
The Sani Abacha Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium was first built in 1959 as Festival Stadium and was redesigned and rebuilt in 1998 by late Gen. Sani Abacha.
The stadium hosted the FIFA U-20 World Soccer Championship in 1999 and has the capacity of 16,000 spectators.
The Sani Abacha Stadium has also hosted several international competitions including the 2000 African Cup of Nations and the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Besides, it is the home venue of all Kano Pillars FC League matches and was named after the former military head of state Sani Abacha,
For sure, Sani Abacha Stadium is a fun place to hang out especially in the evenings during matches and meet new people, watch the sporting events and breathe fresh air.
At first it was equipped with functioning floodlights, borehole and a heavy duty standby generator, but sadly none of these facilities are working as they are faulty and vandalized.
And that made the hitherto beautiful edifice is now something else as the stadium in such deplorable conditions that it is no longer serving the purposes for which it was built.
As it is now, no big competition can be staged in the stadium due to its poor condition which needs to be totally renovated.
The artificial turf (carpet) is tired and needs replacement, the stadium’s electronics scoreboard and the generator that powered it and other places in the stadium are all faulty and vandalized. The flood lights too are not functioning.
Even water supply is impossible because the borehole that supplies water to the stadium is not functioning which makes all the toilets that were provided in the stadium to be totally bad.
Despite the fact that the stadium houses the offices of Kano Football Association, Kano Pillars FC and many others, there is nothing to write home about or entice one in the stadium’s environment and surroundings.
The stadium’s environment is so unkempt that the glory of the facilities is better appreciated only in the far distance.
It is unfortunate that the Sani Abacha Stadium, Kofar Mata that many see as an international stadium is now a shadow of itself as nearly everything that was fitted to make it answer its name had been bastardized.
To make the situation worse, the stadium was shut down for a long time (at least two seasons) but not for renovation but the conversion as the COVID 19 pandemic isolation center by the previous administration which affected the facilities greatly.
And that was what led to the relocation of all Kano Pillars FC Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) matches to Ahmadu Bello stadium Kaduna some years back which seriously and negatively affected the club which consequently led to its relegation to the lower division.
Similarly, the stadium’s closeness to Kantin Kwari Market did not help matters as the traders nearby encroached its space and converted it to either their car parks or goods loading site.
Due to poor maintenance, most of the walls of the buildings in the stadium are very dirty just as there is nothing cozy about the VIP zone. Doors, windows and burglaries have been vandalized or damaged.
Alas, the sorry state of Sani Abacha Stadium is also the same and similar to that of Kano Pillars stadium. Built in 1953 and named Sabon Gari Township stadium, the stadium was a curve-out from the nearby church which hosted the WAFU Cup second round, second leg match between Ranchers Bees FC of Kaduna, Nigeria and Mighty Borole FC of Liberia in 1989 and 1998 respectively.
It was the former military Head of State, General Sani Abacha that equipped the stadium prior to Nigeria ’99 were damaged or vandalized. It is to be an alternative stadium to Sani Abacha Stadium and is mostly used for football matches, athletics and some political gatherings.
Therefore renovating the two stadiums is a welcome development especially now that the government is very serious about sports and its development.
On the creation of four additional stadia in Gaya, Karaye, Rano and Bichi, we see these as positive steps aimed at taking sports to other places, especially rural areas.
And we see it as the answer of our appeals and cries for building additional stadiums especially in the three senatorial zones but take sports nearer to the rural populace in the state.
We see this as a commendable step to revotionalize sports in the state which will positively unearth all the hidden talents that are littered all over the state.
My prayer is for the government to entrust all these structures to serious hands that will take very good care of them and stop or prevent vandals from vandalizing them.
The government must start to hold people that were entrusted with taking care of public properties responsible so that the vandalisation of public properties will be reduced or stopped.