IBDEC Throws Awo Stadium Into Darkness, As Shops Owners Groan

The entire premises of Obafemi Awolowo Stadium Ibadan have been thrown into darkness for the past three weeks, the development that had hampered businesses of many private occupant of the first sports arena in West Africa.

The power outage according to staff of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company who does not want his name in print came as a result of the backlog of arrears payment running into 400,000 Naira which the South/West zone one of National Sports Commission that has its headquarters situated inside the stadium could not proffer a visible time to offset.

“Our businesses have been greatly injured by this power outage that had entered its 20th day now, and no one offers meaningful clue to how the problem can be resolved with the IBDEC, the money being owed is quite much than what one individual here can shoulder.

“We ‘re only pleading with the Abuja to come to our aid, and bail us out of this mess we found ourselves for the past three weeks”, a shop owner who craved for anonymity fumed.

It would be recalled that the leadership of the NSC zonal offices have disclosed that the periodical grants that comes from Abuja basically for maintenance of facilities are no more forthcoming for the past 14 months.

When contacted about the development, the Stadium manager, Mr. Ahmed Jumare  said the outage was due to an internal fault that occurred within the stadium and not any huge debt claiming the problem would soon be rectified.