Whispering Drums With Maigani
by Musa Ibrahim
What went wrong syndrome
The building complex said to comprise eight housing units of various designs are now having finishing touches put to them.
According to one newspaper "six out of eight buildings have been variously furnished with air conditioners installed to standards of five star hotels." Construction work on the buildings is said to have commenced within six months of the assumption of power of General Buhari.
According to the reports, the complex is conservatively estimated at about N10 million.
The questions that are being asked include why the buildings were sited at Daura which had no federal government establishment to "attract such a huge guest house or to be converted to other uses in future."
Then others are said to be saying that the little town of Daura has nothing to it apart from the dubious distinction of Gen Buhari coming from there.
Predictably, "some officials" of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing are now being said to have been opposed to the siting and construction of the complex.
A thousand and one reasons can be found to condemn the Daura Govern- ment House, the insensitivity, the hypocrisy involved in Buhari under- taking a project when he claimed the country did not have the resources to complete Abuja, the federal capital, on schedule. The arrogance was in his assumption that his hometown, Daura, ought to become a place of some significance in Nigeria when he has not even attempted anything that would get him even a footnote in Nigerian history. One could give the example of ex-President Shagari, who, having won the 1979 elections, had a mandate for at least four years and a possible extra four years. Can anybody imagine the uproar that would have en- sued if he had attempted to build even one modest government guest house in his hometown for visitors? Can you hear the thunder of the Nigerian press or the screams of the UPN?
And yet somebody who had no mandate from the people and who had only come to head a "corrective regime", to put a stop to 'squander- mania' etc, etc, had the nerve to order an eight unit complex in his hometown, and what happened? Nothing, not one word of protest, not until after the man had been booted out does the fact of their construction even make it to the front page and the disquiet of unnamed officials over the project is made known.
It could also be said that it provides evidence of the long term plans of Gen Buhari and an explanation as to why he was so adamantly set against any talk of an eventual return to civilian rule. He obviously intended to remain as Nigeria's Head of State for a long time and then possibly in his old age, hand over the country to his son and heir.
There is no other explanation for it at all, seeing that nobody ever con- sidered turning the hometowns of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe or Chief Obafemi Awolowo or the Sardauna of Sokoto or Gen Gowon or Gen Murtala Muhammed into federal government towns!
But then all that and more is NOT what interests me at the moment.
Why did the matter of the Daura estates come up only after Gen Buhari had fallen. Surely, the buildings did not suddenly spring up after Gen. Babangida 'did his thing' - and it is not likely that it is only now that people know about their existence.
Or could it be that nobody said anything about it because of the fear of Decree 4? Or is it because it is so much easier to be brave after the event?
It is always much easier for the vulture to get a meal than it is for the eagle; the one goes to feast on dead bodies and the other tackles living bodies. It is so much easier to expose the wrongs in a government that has fallen.
The new President, Maj-Gen Babangida ought to watch out for such things. As the saying goes, there is no secret under the sun. He would know, for example, if there is another 'Daura estate' going up or being contemplated, and he ought to know that one day it will be cited as part of what went wrong.
For my part, I would rather concentrate on what is going on now (right or wrong) rather than wait for what went wrong.
