Featured image credit: Godwin Obaseki
A groundbreaking ceremony has been held for a new 6,000-capacity arena in Benin City, Nigeria, which will be named in honour of Afrobeats star, Rema.
The 24-year-old, who was born in the capital of Edo State, was among those present at the official commencement of work at the venue formerly named Edo Arena. Now to be known as ‘Rema Dome’, the facility is being designed as a state-of-the-art events centre and conference hall.
This site, which spans about five hectares of land, is envisioned as an entertainment hub that will host a wide range of events—from concerts and national conferences to symposiums and other large gatherings.
Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, said, according to This Day: “When we came into government in 2016, we didn’t have a venue for events but rather we were hiring canopies for events and renting places for large events, especially when we invite people out of the state. It became clear that we needed to have a venue where we could host large events.
“In the course of our planning, we realised that Edo has a unique advantage. They don’t call us the heartbeat of Nigeria for nothing. Edo enjoys tremendous traffic as most Nigerians move through Edo State and we noticed that it’s a huge economic advantage for us.
“We have the capacity to host national events and attract all Nigerians here. We made strategic plans as we began to sell our culture and position ourselves to attract more people to our state. We are using sport to attract people to our state as we remodelled the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium into a world-class sports centre. We can boast today of the best sporting facility in Nigeria.
“To host cultural and entertainment events, we developed the old Observer premises into a world-class sound stage that can host about 2,000 to 3,000 guests.”
Obaseki explained that the limits of the latter venue created an “urgent need” to develop a larger facility. The Rema Dome is being looked upon as a key element in the government’s wider effort to make Edo State a tourist destination.
He added: “This is what many countries in the world live on, not petroleum or crude oil but tourism. These countries don’t have the fraction of what we have in the state in terms of tourism. What they have is the infrastructure to support tourism, and this is what we have started to build in Edo State.
“When completed, this will be one of the biggest and largest spaces that can attract events into the state. This project is important to us as most of our projects embarked on by our administration have opened the state for more investors to come in.”
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