Much have been said about the capacity crowd at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium that watched Nigeria’s 1-1 draw against Egypt with the only omission being the efforts of the president of the NFF to control the crowd which went a long way in preventing any form of chaos or stampede.
Amaju Pinnick came into the stadium one hour to the game but instead of taking his seat in the VIP section the NFF supremo headed straight to the fans gathered on the athletic track of the stadium in front of the perimeter fencing.
The Stadium which originally seats 25,000 had about 50,000 people in attendance and Pinnick showed his crowd control skills by pleading and even knelling to the fans to move backward which they did as oppose to the use of force the security operatives were earlier using to no avail.
Pinnick didn’t stop there he ensured the standing crowd were barricaded by security operatives to stop them from going close to the substitute bench of the Egyptians and his smart appeal to those who have no seat and where to stand bar the stadium track made them walk out of the stadium.
After the game he also ensured they were easily safely and gently vacated from the stadium and once again not with force which would have brought out some resistance but with cajoling and pep talks.
His use of words and not force went a long way in keeping the capacity crowd calm before,during and after the game.
