A few days ago, a post on the Anambra State Government House under construction appeared on my timeline. The mind-boggling cost of the Governor’s official residence put at over six billion naira (N6b) immediately made my mind race to Ayi Kwei Armah’s seminal offering, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born. The race wasn’t so much about making a mental recapture of the metaphors that Armah deployed to highlight the wastes that underline postcolonial governance as it was about understanding wasteful governance as a betrayal of citizens who hope for a meaningful life but find themselves trapped in multidimensional poverty while rulers build grand palaces as government houses. Does the building of stately mansions and grand palaces by these political leaders, amid crumbling public infrastructures, who should be more circumspect in spending scarce state resources on projects that bring no real values to the lives of those they govern, not prove Armah’s suggestion right that true change requires the beautiful ones – a generation of committed, compassionate and ethical leaders who are yet to be born?
Anambra State is not alone in the madness of erecting edifices of opulence. The madness which manifests as nothing more than a sickness, to borrow from Michel Foucault, points at the abnormality that had seized the mind of Abuja, even before it seized Anambra State and elsewhere. Just last year, Minister Wike officially opened the palatial official residence of the Vice President, to the consternation of citizens who considered the sum of twenty two billion naira (N22b) spent on the construction of the residence as extravagant. In a country where citizens’ hope for a secure future is constantly interrogated by the struggles for survival, spending scarce state resources on building official residences of grandeur, similar only to Mobutu Sese Seko’s grandiloquent palace now hiding under the umbrellas of tall trees of the deep tropical rainforest of Gbadolite, DR Congo, not only symbolises extravagance but also signposts tragic governance failures. These Gbadolite-like structures raise serious questions about the ethos of public service of our rulers.
Mobutu’s personal Xanadu, famously described by David Smith of the Guardian of London as the African Versailles, sprawls first as a built monument to memory of a maximum ruler who lived his dreams by splurging state resources on his personal comfort and at the expense of men, women, and children of his country; and latterly as a vegetative ruin which depicts the transience of power. Here, governors appear to be reliving Mobutu’s greed by erecting their Versailles in the conurbations of States’ capitals with taxpayer money while ordinary citizens, laden with heavy yoke, scrape the bottom barrel of poverty. Taraba State, for instance, spent over Fourteen Billion Naira (N14b) in 2015 on its new Government House, despite the prevalence of intense multidimensional poverty in the State. Similarly, Zamfara State, with a local debt burden of over One Hundred and Twelve Billion Naira (N112.2b) and seventy eight percent (78%) of its population as poor, spent Eleven Billion Naira (N11b) under Abdulaziz Yari to build a Government House. Osun State, under Governor Rauf Aregbesola, built a new Government House while the state struggled with huge debts and unpaid workers’ salaries. Also in Bauchi State, former Governor Mohammed Abubakar embarked on an expensive Government House project, ignoring the state’s overstretched resources.
For many governors, who have become our modern day dandies, these Government Houses’ projects aren’t about governance as they are more about their obnoxious attachments to leaving “legacies” of grandeur behind when they complete their constitutional tenures. These attachments reveal a deeper and more troubling attachment to the grotesque Mobutu Complex that at once highlights vulgar ostentation and misuse of state resources. Governance for them isn’t about public service; it is more about self-aggrandisement; and perhaps the hideous kickbacks that invariably inflate construction costs and fattens private accounts.
As with supporters who justified the sum of Six Billion Naira Anambra State Government House, with “gate houses, police posts, perimeter fence measuring 2.22 linear kilometers and other internal works such as drive ways, parking areas, walk ways, drainages, water supplies, green area, etc”, on my twitter timeline, there are those who claim that the government houses would attract foreign investments. Hear: no investors prioritise the aesthetics of government houses over infrastructure or vanity projects over governance environment that makes the ease of business possible. None.
The human cost of these projects is immense. The billions of naira spent on these opulent mansions could have been invested in human development, for instance, or used to address the insecurity plaguing these States. Rather our dandies, retreating to the fortresses of government houses, prefer optics to substance and their personal safety to the safety of the governed. Good luck to ordinary citizens who sit like ducks in their unfortified neighbourhoods until they are snatched by itinerant bandits and insurgents. Last week, five members of a family were kidnapped from their home in an Abuja suburb. The remains of the mother of the house were eventually recovered from a forest in nearby Niger State, with the whereabouts of others still unknown.
Building opulent government houses reflects a governance model only fit for the monarchy- not a constitutional democracy. Governance in a constitutional democracy is driven by service to the people rather than by self-aggrandisement. As our country continues to confront its numerous challenges, Governors must learn two things. Firstly, that beautiful buildings don’t make a good government. Secondly, leadership is about delivering on projects that directly improve citizens’ lives. The era of vulgar ostentation must end, and scarce resources must be channeled into building a country that works for all citizens. Only then can our country begin to fulfill its immense potential of securing a brighter future for all. For now, we await the beautiful ones- who are not yet born!
