- The Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin will be ready to host the 2020 National Sports Festival in March, the contractor handling the reconstruction of the stadium has said.
The Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin will be ready to host the 2020 National Sports Festival in March, the contractor handling the reconstruction of the stadium has said.
Femi James, Site Engineer for the contractor, Peculiar Ultimate Consult, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday in Benin that the reconstruction work had attained over 90 per cent completion.
He assured that the reconstructed facility would be delivered in time for the 20th NSF.
According to him, Edo will have a brand new stadium with modern sporting facilities aside football, when completed.
He said the reconstruction work that had seen the entire stadium complex transformed, had between 100 to 150 construction workers working on a daily basis.
“We have a new four-in-one tennis court and spectators’ stands. We had to pull down what we had here before and reconstruct. This new one is now four times of what was pulled down here.
“Fitted along with the new tennis court is a new two-storey secretariat; what was there before as secretariat was a makeshift structure,” James said.
“Another interesting thing is that we have built a new squash court and spectator stand with a befitting secretariat to go with.
“We also have a brand new single tennis court for finals with spectators stand. We also built, though attached to the main bowl, weightlifting and Para-powerlifting hall. What we had there before was also a makeshift one.
“Presently, we are building a new gymnasium hall for weightlifting, kickboxing and boxing.” he said.
James said the new additions had hindered the delivery of the project as earlier promised.
“Most of these buildings were not in the original plan of the stadium reconstruction work, but they had to be brought in to provide modern facilities to the sports-loving people of the state.
“You can see that most of the projects such as the swimming pool and some others have been completed. For the main bowl, we have started laying the tartan tracks. We are almost done with the laying of the black granus and will commence with the red granus at the weekend. On the whole, everything about the tartan track will be completed on January 31,” he stated.
The festival, tagged Edo 2020, will take place between March 22 and April 1.
It’s the third time the state will be hosting the NSF, having hosted as old Bendel State in 1981 and as Edo in 2002.
