If the pace of relocation of the seat of government has been slow and sluggish since the formal proclamation of Abuja as the country’s new federal capital, the events of Sunday April 22, 1990 accelerated the snail’s pace. Murtala Ramat Mohammed, an army general and Nigerian head of state, passed a law on February 4, 1976 designating Abuja as the country’s new federal capital. Lagos, which had served as the Nigerian capital since its independence in 1960, had become largely unsuitable as it accentuated the population, urban traffic jams, and the unsolvable traffic growls that weighed on government business. Mohammed and his advisors therefore designed a brand new capital area, which was built from scratch based on the Brazilian model.
Sadly, less than 10 days later, Mohammed was killed by military coups on February 13, 1976 when the official vehicle in which he was being chauffeured was attacked by dissident soldiers on a street in the precincts of his office. Mohammed unfortunately did not realize his dream of a new administrative center for Nigeria, but his successors, Olusegun Obasanjo, who replaced him, and Shehu Usman Shagari, democratically elected president in accordance with the Mohammed / Obasanjo transition program, worked to make this vision a reality.
In fact, Shagari operated as civil president mainly from Abuja to provide impetus for the sustainable development of the new country. Regardless of the progress Shagari made in the growth of the new capital, the overthrow of his government was swiftly reversed on December 31, 1983, three months after its renewed mandate. Muhammadu Buhari, Major General and General Officer of the Third Armored Division of the Nigerian Army, Jos, succeeded him. His government, which was also ended by another military coup on August 27, 1985, had little time to maintain the development of the new capital.
If Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who succeeded Buhari, was overly attached to the fascination of the coast and the joy of the skyscrapers of Lagos, he received a gross shock on Sunday April 22, 1990. On that day, a group of young mid-level military officers led by Gideon Gwaza Orkar, a major in the Nigerian army, attempted to overthrow his government by force. Fortunately, Babangida, the coupists’ main target, survived the coup. However, his adjutant, Lt. Col. UK Bello, was not so lucky because he died to protect his boss.
This unique incident shook Babangida, who historically had a dreaded reputation for actively participating in every coup in Nigeria after independence. Babangida must have remembered the elimination of one of his idols, military superior and predecessor Mohammed, on the streets of Lagos 14 years before attempting his life. Babangida would then accelerate development efforts in Abuja. He paid particular attention to the fine details that made the upcoming office and residence of the President, the Commander in Chief, practically impregnable. The new State House, which is currently being developed, would address the shortcomings of the Dodan Barracks in Ikoyi, Lagos, where all post-independence Nigerian leaders, military and civilians preferred their office and residence.
Babangida officially moved the capital to Abuja on December 12, 1991, a few months before the second anniversary of the attempted coup against him. I noticed in a play called “Obasanjo, Democracy and the New Aso Rock” that the sprawling complex was particularly fortified. The piece was featured in a book I wrote and published in 2006 entitled “In the Footsteps of History: A Reporter’s Notebook About Olusegun Obasanjo”.
I had said, among other things, that the villa “lies between a complicated formation of domineering rocks that are secured by an artificial canal and protected from the easy view by trees and bushes”. My good friend and colleague during our days at the State House, Handel Okoli, actually once said: “My brother, this place is a fortress, no mistakes. Whoever thought it made no claim to their military and intelligence background … It’s a garrison, plain and simple. “
However, Aso Villa has recently become the butt of jokes, insults, innuendo, abuse, and denigration for a variety of reasons. The dramas and developments that regularly assume are the stuff of tragic comedy. These vary from weird to absurd, absurd, simply unimaginable. For example, you are alarmed when strictly private and personal events dance around on social media in Nigeria’s Capitol Hill. Today the President’s wife, Aisha Buhari, could be in the arms of those who locked her out of her State House apartment after returning from vacation! And you wonder who in the world has the boldness to lock the doors behind the number one citizen’s wife and toss the keys into Usuma Dam.
Tomorrow rats and cockroaches drove the President himself out of his office, so that he “crouches” in an office in the First Lady’s wing of the villa and takes care of state affairs there. Incidentally, the President had been on vacation in the UK for 100 good days while his deputy stood up for him. If his workplace has degenerated so badly that rodents and cockroaches found a new home there, you wonder if he was ever expected back at his place.
Before you have a drink, the rumor mill goes into full swing that the president is supposedly taking a new wife! The story goes that his wife has been out of the country for so many months and the arrangements have been perfected to take on one of his ministers, Sadia Umar Farouk, who is in charge of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development. as his new spouse. He’s 79 while she’s 46, but that wouldn’t matter. A time and date are set while the venue will be the Abuja Central Mosque.
A short time later, shots were reported in Aso Villa. The first lady has problems with the president’s nephew and his closest adviser, Sabiu Yusuf, who is also nicknamed “Tunde Idiagbon”. The story goes that Tunde, who had just returned from a visit to Lagos at the height of the COVID-19 threat, had refused to self-isolate as a necessary precaution in dealing with the Scourge. The first lady is paranoid that he could infect members of the first family because he has free access to them. She wants him to be forcibly ejected from the villa. Security aides tied to the First Lady therefore publicly show brute power, to the embarrassment and chagrin of Nigerians.
One evening in February last year, Laetitia Dagan, an assistant director at the State House, was murdered at her Abuja accommodation a few hours after she returned from work. There have been conflicting suggestions as to why she was killed, and one school of thought suggested that some villains in her neighborhood were taking her out for reporting her suspicious activity to the police. Another reason cited was the fact that the leakage of some important documents in her department was due to her and the people involved in her murder.
Continued tomorrow on the opinion page.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, journalist, poet, and scholar, is a former adviser to the President.
