Liberty Stadium: Goodluck shines on Obafemi Awolowo

It might have taken long in coming, but President Goodluck Jonathan honoured Chief Obafemi Awolowo last week during his official visit to Ogun State by re-naming the Liberty Stadium after the late national icon. FEMI ATOYEBI visited the facility during the week and narrates his experience. A tour of the newly-renamed Liberty Stadium facilities will make one wonder how brilliant

the vision of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo when he started the building of the first sports

stadium in the west coast of Africa in 1958.

The bright imagination of the late sage was so amazing that the site of the stadium is easily accessible to visitors and people living in Ibadan. And after the stadium was completed in 1960, the year Nigeria became an independent nation, it was named the Liberty Stadium.

In honour of the exemplary life and the role that the former Premier of the defunct Western Region played in building the nation, President Goodluck Jonathan renamed the stadium after Awolowo during a visit he paid to Awolowo‘s widow, Chief Dideolu, in Ikenne, Ogun State, last week.

It was an announcement many have expected for a long time considering the fact that several stadiums in the country have been named after late politicians. But it only came 23 years after the death of Awolowo and 50 years after the stadium was opened.

Today, the former Liberty Stadium is ageing but the beauty is still visible. Designed by J.E.K. Harrison Chartered Architect in consultation with the then Ministry Works and Transport in the old Western Region, the stadium has features that are not present in many other stadiums built after decades of its existence. Not that the features are no longer in vogue, but they were left out of the present plan probably because the builders felt they would stretch the budget.
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