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President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday declared that the National Stadium, Abuja will henceforth be called Moshood Abiola National Stadium.
The president made the declaration in his inaugural and Democracy Day speech at the ceremony held at Eagle Square, Abuja.
“Today, I propose the renaming of the Abuja National Stadium,” Buhari said.
“Henceforth it will be called the Moshood Abiola National Stadium.”
He said the renaming of the stadium is in further honour of late Chief Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election which was annuled by the military administration of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.
The 60,000-capacity stadium is a multipurpose national sports stadium located in Abuja. Its construction started in 2000 and was opened in 2003 to host the 8th All Africa Games which took place in October 2003.
The stadium has however suffered from lack of maintenance till date. It was initially considered to be a state-of-the-art sports facility, but today, it is rated among the worst in standard facility and environmental.