For over two years, the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo, also known as the Nest of Champions, has been Nigeria’s only FIFA/CAF approved facility to host international football matches.
The stadium is home to the senior national team, the Super Eagles and Nigerian Premier Football League (NPFL) club, Akwa United, as well as venue for Rivers United, Enugu Rangers and Enyimba’s continental matches.
It was recently recognised as one of the best football stadiums by CAF and given the pass to host any games involving some of Nigeria’s neighbouring countries, who do not have any approved stadium for their international games.
When the stadium was opened in 2014 by the Akwa Ibom State government, the then governor, Godswill Akpabio, announced that the state had a 10-year renewable maintenance agreement with construction company, Julius Berger, which would ensure that the facility is at tiptop shape at all times.
But the football pitch has gone bad. Stakeholders, including players of Enyimba of Aba and their guests, Al Masry of Egypt, were surprised at the poor state of the pitch, which did not allow for free flow of the game.
A Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) official told The Guardian that the federation has informed Akwa Ibom State government on the need to give the pitch a face-lift since it is the only arena available for all the country’s international games.
He said: “We understand that the state government has a committee charged with ensuring the maintenance of the stadium. So, we want the committee to take a look at the football pitch and find solution to the problem areas.
The problem requires expert touch to address before it gets out of hand. I don’t know if Julius Berger has experts in grass pitch maintenance, but there are many of such experts in the country.”
Reacting to the NFF official’s concerns, Akwa Ibom State Football Association Chairman, Samuel Umoh, told The Guardian, yesterday, that Julius Berger has already started maintenance work on the stadium, including the football pitch.
He said that the state government wanted to shut down the stadium to allow for the maintenance work, adding, however, it could not do so because of the ongoing football season.
“Ordinarily, we would not have allowed Enyimba to use the stadium because it disturbed the contractor’s work, but we had to allow them because they had no alternative.
Our state team, Akwa United, uses the same stadium and it is a problem because they have no alternative. But there is no cause for alarm as the contractor has assured us that all the bad areas of the stadium will be returned to normal after the work.”
