Darkness At The Games: Shehu Dikko Reveals Alarming Truth Behind Abeokuta Power Outage

A technical glitch was responsible for the power outage that occurred during the men’s 10,000m final at the 2024 National Sports Festival, held at the MKO Abiola Sports Complex in Abeokuta.

The race, which closed out day two of athletics at the 22nd edition of the festival hosted by Ogun State, was abruptly disrupted when the stadium lights went out for about 20 minutes midway through the event.

Despite the blackout, Francis James of Plateau State completed the race in 30:36:50, though he admitted the outage threw off his pace and affected his overall performance. Interestingly, power was restored almost immediately after the race ended.

At a World Press Conference in Abeokuta on Sunday, Shehu Dikko addressed the incident, linking it to the new infrastructure at the recently refurbished stadium.

“We had just left the stadium when the outage happened,” Dikko explained. “It was a technical issue, which is not unusual for new facilities running continuously. Fortunately, it was resolved swiftly, showing our preparedness to handle such issues.”

He acknowledged the power failure’s impact on the event, noting that the race could not be paused. Going forward, he suggested possible contingency solutions like solar backup systems, depending on the stadium’s power demands and other logistical factors.