The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, has officially handed over the Moshood Abiola National Stadium to Dangote Group for rehabilitation.
The minister, who disclosed this in a press release from his media office, thanked the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, for believing in the ministry’s vision and revealed that the rehabilitation would be executed in 24 weeks.
The project will be handled by Aron Nigeria Limited, according to the ministry.
“I promised that this pitch and indeed other facilities will be revived and put to best use by athletes. In line with that mandate, we sought the support of many philanthropists and sold them our vision of bringing back the glory days when our national stadia were filled to capacity on football game days which were the melting pot of various cultures and people of all ages,” the minister said.
He noted that the landmark event reinforced his faith in public-private sector partnership, in line with Government’s efforts at delivering on its mandate.
“Government alone cannot fund sports and maintain facilities. We need more private corporations to take a cue from what Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Chief Adebutu Kessington have done in supporting our drive to renovate and maintain our facilities for use by our athletes and to play host to international events,” he said.
He urged the contractor handling the project to move with the speed of light, noting that the Federal Government had imbibed a sound maintenance culture to ensure that the huge sums spent on these projects were not wasted.
The Permanent Secretary, Gabriel Aduda, in his remarks, added that Government could not afford the resources to maintain sporting facilities, hence the strategy to partner with the private sector through the ministry’s Adopt Campaign.
