The minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare insists the national stadium in Lagos is not a market, so there is no going back on the decision to demolish illegal shops and structures to achieve the objective of returning the edifice to its original blueprint.
“The facility in Surulere, Lagos is an iconic monument to sports development. It is a sporting complex, any other purpose for which is used will not be accepted. It is not a market, it’s not a beer parlour. “If you go there now, you will be shocked that stadium is actually so beautiful because we’ve cleaned it up by taking those things down and we are sure that before the end of this year, you will see changes in that place and we hope to build a 150 shopping mall that all these people can come and be in a single, unified and decent place.
“The adopt-a-pitch model or private participation is simply a process in which we get an organisation or individual interested in adopting a sports facility. There have been speculations about a rescheduled date for the event and the minister of youth and sports development provides some clarifications.