“I’ve been selling cooked food here at the stadium since 1992. I can’t understand what’s happening. We were given a 14-day ultimatum to move our belongings out of the stadium, which we complied, and now they’ve demolished my shop along with many others,” lamented a tearful Mrs Funmi Ojo, a business owner inside the National Stadium, Lagos.
The 60-year-old Ojo, owner of Food Village, a restaurant inside Sports City, as the stadium is popularly known, is one among hundreds of business owners affected by the renovation exercise of the regime of the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
The demolition, which began on Wednesday, had many of the shop owners, who had been at the arena for several decades, in misery with no means of survival in sight.
Expectedly, the atmosphere at the stadium, which had been under closed to users since the outbreak of the coronavirus in March, was that of anguish, wailings and lamentations when one of our correspondents visited the arena on Friday.
“Look at me, I don’t have a husband, through my food business, I was able to train my children, my last child graduated from university two years ago, but he is jobless. We feed on my food business in the stadium. We are begging the government to help us,” Ojo added.
The stadium, built in 1972 by the military regime of Gen Yakubu Gowon (retd.) had been left in ruins since the early 2000s, and last hosted a national team game in 2004, with football matches moved to the nearby Teslim Balogun Stadium.
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