PETER AKINBO writes on how death was averted at the National Stadium, Lagos, on Wednesday after a dilapidated floodlight pillar came crashing down
The tremors were felt all around the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos and the environs, after one of the floodlights inside the edifice split in two and collapsed following a heavy windstorm on Wednesday, April 19 in Terrace K of the stadium.
Athletes who had been taking shelter from the rain all ran to the source of the noise and the consensus was ‘Thank God no one was hurt,’ ‘No one was here when it happened,’ ‘Thank goodness the stadium was empty today.’
These were the statements of some athletes when our correspondent visited the stadium a day after the unfortunate incident.
The Stadium Manager, Kehinde Owopetu, also confirmed there were no casualties despite the devastating effect of the collapsed lights and pillar.
“No loss of lives or injuries sustained, no one was there when it fell,” Owopetu said.
The collapsed floodlights didn’t come as a surprise to the many visitors, who thronged the arena on a daily basis in their numbers, and the athletes who trained there regularly.
The world-class edifice had been left to decay for close to two decades by successive administrations, with the last major event held there being the 2000 Africa Cup of Nations co-hosted by Nigeria and Ghana.
Several analysts had expressed fears of an imminent collapse of the structures inside the stadium due to lack of renovation and maintenance, calling on successive governments, to no avail.
Just 12 days before the catastrophe, the sports minister, Sunday Dare, while on an inspection visit to the stadium to access the level of work done on the main bowl pitch, tartan tracks, and scoreboard, lamented its dilapidated state, adding that fixing the stadium would cost a staggering N21bn.
The minister added that an integrity test carried out on the stadium revealed that only 40 per cent of the stands were still in the right shape.
He added that concerted efforts by the ministry to bring in the private sector to help in renovating the stadium, fell on deaf ears, following the emergence of COVID-19 and the harsh economic crunch that affected the private sector.
He called for intervention from private organisations to “adopt” other facilities, including the floodlights, that required renovation in the stadium.
“This stadium was left for 17 years with nothing happening,” Dare lamented.
The outgoing minister’s fears were confirmed on Wednesday when the floodlights came crumbling down.
Igho Otuoraha, a wheelchair basketball and tennis player, who was at the National Institute for Sports when the tragedy occurred, said they were horrified watching the floodlights go down from afar.
“When the rain was about to fall that morning, I went into the NIS building. From there, we watched in disbelief as the pillar holding the floodlights fell down. We could see it from that far because the pillar is very long,” Otuoraha told Saturday PUNCH.
“I actually did my exercises very close to where it fell, and the exact place it fell is where I usually passed on a daily basis, so, I thank God. According to what I heard, another para-athlete, a powerlifter, was close by when the lights crumbled. If it was on a Saturday or Sunday, a lot of people would have died here, cars would have been damaged and injuries would have been sustained.”
The athlete who escaped death by a whisker turned out to be Sandra Odeyale, who represented Delta State at multiple National Sports Festivals, winning three silver medals in para-powerlifting.
Mama G, a nickname Odeyale shares with popular Nollywood actress, Patience Ozokwor, is a popular figure at the dilapidated stadium and under the flyover right in front of the stadium.
When our correspondent met Odeyale under the flyover, she was in an ecstatic mood, with her near-death experience still very fresh in her mind.
But there was also a hint of anger in her tone, disappointed that the arena she had been training for over a decade, almost took her life.
“On that Wednesday morning, between 9.30am to 10am, we were under the stadium floodlights. Then, I saw the pillar looking like it wanted to uproot itself from the ground,” Odeyale told Saturday PUNCH.
“I told a boy standing close to me, ‘this thing wants to fall down.’ The next thing we heard was some loud noises as the structure was creaking and I shouted, ‘let’s go away from here!’
“The boy immediately started pushing my wheelchair, and we started running, I’ve never run like that in my life. We were soaked in the rain. As we were running, the floodlights and the pillar fell right behind us, exactly where we were a moment ago,” she added.
Interestingly, Odeyale had never met the boy who was rescued and has not seen him thereafter.
“It was that morning I met the boy that saved me. I had wanted to climb up one of the ramps earlier and he offered to help me. Later, he went to pick up his clothes where he dropped them before the rain started. He was picking up his clothes when I started shouting and calling on him to come and help me,” Odeyale stated.
“That is how we escaped; if not for him, I would be dead by now. My body would have been scattered in pieces, there would have been nothing to pick up to bury. I could not think of anything when it was happening, I did not believe something like that could fall.”
After Wednesday’s traumatic experience, Oluchi visited the site of the incident the same day and Thursday but admits she would avoid the edifice anytime it rained.
“I went there and touched the wreckage of the floodlights on the floor and marveled that ‘this is what wanted to kill us.’ I thanked the Lord for sparing me and the boy. “I won’t be there again anytime it is raining; people are saying the three floodlights left will also fall and that the government should replace them so that there won’t be casualties if it happens.”
Meanwhile, it’s been celebration, rejoicing, and merriment amongst para-athletes, commercial bus drivers, and conductors, as well as the illegal traders under the flyover following the 38-year-old mother of two sons’ “survival.”
“I am very happy that nothing happened to Mama G, all of us are very happy, she is a mother to all of us here, and she is a very caring person who looks after all of us. She cooks for physically challenged people and even those who are not physically challenged,”
Adebayo ‘Oshodi Glover’, a para-boxer, told Saturday PUNCH.
Oluchi’s husband, Ayobami, said, “I don’t know what I would have done if she had died, I was very worried and waiting for her under the shelter here (flyover) and suddenly I saw someone pushing her. I ran into the rain to meet her and then she told me what happened. I have been thanking God for her and the boy who saved her life.”
Our correspondent tried to find the Good Samaritan who saved Oyelade but no one could fathom who the young man was. Several athletes said he wasn’t a regular at the stadium, but he appeared exactly when he was needed, and was at the right place at the right time to help avert danger.
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