Metropole Magazine: On a Roll

For Abuja’s growing skater community, skating is both a hobby and a lifestyle, writes Chika Oduah

A pack of whirling, twirling, leaping and jumping speed-junkies has turned the city of Abuja into a giant skate park. The jovial gang of happy-go-lucky thrill-seekers – clad in bright colours and skin-tight trousers – glide through the city’s streets with enviable merriment on shoes fastened with wheels.

One of them, 31-year-old Yemi Oladipupo, has high ambitions for skating in Nigeria. He first became interested in 2006 after spotting skaters around town, and finding out that they mostly hang out around Zone 5, he longed to buy a pair of skates and join them. But he found out that getting a pair of adult-sized inline skates (also called rollerblades) in Nigeria is no easy feat, as skates are not manufactured in the country.

“People have to go to Lagos to get them second-hand,” said Oladipupo, who hails from Osun State. “I’m [always] looking forward to the person who will bring new skates to Nigeria.”

He eventually bought a pair of used, low quality plastic skates for N7, 000 and taught himself to roll. He then helped to organise the Abuja Skaters Club to unite the city’s skaters in an association, and seven years later the club has become a thriving, loosely-bound network of shifting membership, currently at around 50 people ranging from three to 40-year-olds.

Stanley ‘C.J’ Ebesike, 22, started skating 15 years ago whilst living in Ghana, and when he moved to Abuja he joined the club. “Skating is fun,” he says as he stands beside Oladipupo. Their fit, lean frames of trim muscles, narrow waists and broad shoulders testify to the athletic prowess of the sport.

A sense of camaraderie and familiarity keep the members together as they practice stunts during the weekend. And despite the male dominance in membership, women say they feel welcome. Mimi Kanu, 18, says the guys in the club are like her brothers. She joined in 2012 after watching the skaters at the Millennium Park. “I saw it and I just loved it,” she says. She bought a pair of skates along with knee and ankle guards for N15, 000, and now she’s one of the leading ladies in the group and has introduced many into the sport. She also taught most of the girls in the club to skate.

Club membership becomes official after registration and payment of the one-time fee of N2, 000, after which members receive a green and white laminated ID card with the words “Abuja Skaters Club, Skating Beyond Imagination” printed underneath an image of a single skate and a flame of fire.

From the point of registration, members start learning the basics during weekend training sessions, and at 7am on Saturdays skaters gather at the Sports Complex in Area 10 to practice urban skating.

“We train on speed by skating on the roads to test our endurance,” says Oladipupo. They skate from Area 10 around town until they reach Jabi Lake, and from 4pm on Sunday afternoons visitors to the lake will see the skaters in full force. “There we have training on stunts and freestyle,” adds Oladipupo. His favourite stunts include skating backwards, 360-degree-jumps and twisting.

For some, skating is more than a hobby—it’s a lifestyle. Many of the club members research the latest skating techniques, watch videos on YouTube, tune into Extreme Sports on satellite television and talk to their skater friends around the country and abroad. They all want to see skating in Nigeria reach the next level.

Plans for a national skating federation are underway to coordinate the various skating clubs in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Jos, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Cross River and other places. Lagos boasts the highest number with, according to Oladipupo, up to 10 clubs. Perhaps a federation will also legitimise skating in Nigeria and attract funding in a similar manner that basketball is managing to do.

Currently, Abuja’s skating club members desperately seek sponsorship to access new skates and uniforms and to establish a much-needed skate park. “We don’t need just football, football, football,” Oladipupo says. “I can promise you that if Nigeria can sponsor skating, it will be more popular than football.”

He is helping to organise the first West Africa Speed Skating Competition to take place in Yaoundé, Cameroon in July 2014. “I want to represent FCT Abuja,” he says. After that, he hopes to obtain a visa to the United States to attend a skating competition in Florida, where he plans to compete as an individual and attain third place at least. “Then I can come back to Abuja and talk to potential sponsors so they will take me seriously.” Oladipupo will fund the trip himself, but the future goal is to have investors who will take care of the costs of competing abroad.

For now, Abuja skaters sharpen their skills, spread the skating gospel and anxiously wait for a benevolent soul willing to sponsor the club. But until then, if you happen to see them in Area 10 or Jabi Lake or even Millennium Park, just wave and say “skate on!”

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