Chuba Ikpeazu stadium Onitsha: Honour or disgrace, By Odi Ikpeazu 

The pictures you see here are of the so called Chuba Ikpeazu Stadium in Onitsha, Anambra State. This disaster area is supposed to have been established in honour of my father, the late Justice Chuba Ikpeazu OFR. I might have called it a joke but it is infinitely more serious than that.

Chuba Ikpeazu was one of the pioneer lawyers in Eastern Nigeria, having graduated from Cambridge University in 1946. He started a legal practice immediately upon his return to Nigeria and it was to become one of the most reputable in the country. He was decorated as a Queen’s Counsel (Q.C.) in recognition of his seminal advocacy, subsequently reaching the zenith of his legal career with his appointment as a judge of the High Court of Lagos, the Federal capital at the time. OK. 

He harboured a very deep love for football,a passion he developed and brought back from his sojourn in England. His favourite player of all time, I recall, was Stanley Matthews, the legendary English international winger of Stoke City and Blackpool, winner of the inaugural ballon d’Or in 1956 and the only British football player to be knighted while still active. 

He founded the Ikpeazu Redoubtables Football Club of Onitsha in 1955, employing his players on a full-time basis, making it the first truly professional clubside in the country. Some of the greatest players of Nigerian football history played for him, such as Friday Okoh, Sam Ibiam,  Cyril Asoluka, Lucky Mojo, Atinga Woma,  Dan Anyiam, Sebastian Brodericks, Paul Hamilton and a long list of others. It was no surprise that he became the first indigenous Chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) in 1964, a responsibility he discharged so well that he was prevailed upon in 1987 to undertake it once more. 

It is in light of the above antecedents, which I have savagely abridged for brevity’s sake, that I am confounded that his home state should name this ramshackle after him and even be so brazen as to erect his bust there, poorly sculpted as it is. 

A visit to the place will convince anyone that Chuba Ikpeazu should be squirming in his grave. A barren patch of scorched earth is euphemistically called the football pitch. A pair of disfigured and rusted iron goal posts appear to mock him further. A solitary spectator stand not sufficient for a primary school playground cynically overlooks the entire desolation. As if to rub it all in, hundreds of people converge on the place regularly, run around a little and then settle down for a drinking and feasting marathon, happily negating any pretension the venue may have as a sports arena! As a matter of fact, that so called stadium must be the largest beer parlour and eatery you may see anywhere in the country.

I am not about to stop anyone from living their life the way they wish or to direct the wise people in government as to how to run the affairs of state. All I wish to do is to salvage what is left of my father’s rubbished football legacy by appealing to Governor Soludo and the relevant agency to kindly extricate the name ‘CHUBA IKPEAZU’ from that human garbage dump. The family is not so hungry for honour as to accept dishonour in its place. I am sure that there are numerous people who would like some public place named after them by any means and at all costs. Such people should please be obliged.

Ikpeazu, Lawyer and Pan-Africanist is a Public Affairs analyst