Arewa House: North’s rallying centre begging for repairs, restocking

Arewa House Kaduna, official residence of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello who held the royal title of Sardauna of Sokoto and became the premier of the Northern Region, is in urgent need of attention. Arewa House came into being in the 1970s with the zeal to document the history of Northern Nigeria and its founding […]

Arewa House Kaduna, official residence of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello who held the royal title of Sardauna of Sokoto and became the premier of the Northern Region, is in urgent need of attention.
Arewa House came into being in the 1970s with the zeal to document the history of Northern Nigeria and its founding fathers. The complex consists of offices, event halls, a big garden as well as staff and boys quarters, and is essentially a resource centre for students.
The house is under the Ahmadu Bello University’s History department and in the care of a director who must be a lecturer from the Department of History of the university.
The current director is Professor Abdulkadir Adamu, who said, academics also refer to the house as Centre for Historical Documentation and Research. It also has an archive/library and a museum in different parts within the complex.
The directors of Arewa House occupy the marble office that the Sardauna built, but he was killed before he entered the building.
Arewa House which is for all the 19 northern states, came on the heels of the assassination of the Sardauna and the need for research and documentation of the history and culture of people of Northern Nigeria.
The Northern governors agreed that the best place would be the residence of the late Sardauna, with the famous leader being a bridge builder among peoples irrespective of religion and tribe. It was meant to be a museum to house the legacies of Sardauna and the founding fathers of the region.
The House has a central museum with galleries for the respective northern states. Some states have not brought anything. Some have sent few items.
It was intended to be a research institution for scholars from first degree up to PhD in such disciplines as Political Science, sociology, Mass Communication, Economics, and Law.
Professor Adamu said some halls were made for conference lectures while there are 12 small post-graduate hostels with fridge, air conditioners, television sets, and furniture.
He said, however, that the facilities were in bad shape, explaining, “Our major problem is that our auditorium is leaking, the carpets are torn, chairs broken and the toilet in a mess. Our library is congested and many books lying on the floor. We don’t have book shelves and no store to put them. Some books date back 200 years and they can break due to humidity. We have a plan for a new conservation laboratory but we don’t have the resources. The post-graduate hostel is too small. Scholars will come without room. No generator in Arewa House to service the hall or post-graduate hostel and it is difficult to work without light as the only old generator has collapsed. We don’t have funding. We don’t receive any grant from ABU, northern states or the federal government. Our activities are restricted by the meager revenue we collect.”
On the sources of the ‘limited’ funding, he said Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) built two halls for the house, adding, “We also sourced funds from a northern elder to repair one hall. But we are making efforts to source funds to continue the repairs. We are thinking of approaching TETFUND to modernize the archive from analogue to digital. When we made attempt we were told that it was election period and not transition period. When the new government is in full control, we can move.
“Out of Sardauna’s legacies, Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC), among others have not assisted in the up-keep of Arewa House.
“The problem is they have their own programes different from assisting Arewa House, but we agreed to collaborate on some issues like the Northern education research and development that we used to carry out.”
The museum in Arewa House is open to the public from 10 am to 3pm, and visitors pay very little, just N100. And they do not charge pupils and students. Arewa House stocks the history of Northern Nigeria, but there are materials from other parts of Nigeria also; except that Nigerian leaders do not consult Arewa House or the History Department of Ahamdu Bello University Zaria on how to learn from the legacies of the fathers who founded Northern Nigeria.
Sardauna, to whom Arewa House is dedicated, is remembered for uniting the otherwise diverse people of the North. He also raised people that succeeded him and people benefitting benefiting from his projects and other forms of legacies.
The Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, which he built, has given birth to graduates in various places, contributing to the development of Nigeria and the rest of the world. He established many industries, some of which leaders after him have not been able to retain. Apart from the ABU, some of his legacy institutions which still function are NNDC, Kaduna; and Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna.
Many notable institutions established by Ahmadu Bello have gone under. Many only exist in the sense that their deserted buildings are to be seen. The New Nigerian Newspapers Ltd (NNN) and Kaduna Textiles Limited (KTL) are examples.
The Arewa House, many have observed, is similarly crumbling. It is facing an uphill task keeping with modernity. The House, for instance, has long been planning to upgrade from analogue to digital computerization but lacks the money. “The computer we have are old, we need modern ones that are fast,” the House director Abdulkadir Adamu said.
Some individuals have been reaching out to the house, according to Adamu who disclosed, “Few scholars like John Labass a (Briton) married to a Nigerian lady and indigene of Potiskum donated his library to us. Former Military Governor of old Sokoto State Alhaji Usman Faruk  and few other scholarly families around Yola and other places have been contributing materials to us.”
He expressed the regret that most leaders do not show concern. “Our leaders do not visit to find out how to help us. That is why we are in this predicament.
The late Sir Ahmadu Bello was born on June 12, 1910 and was assassinated in a military coup on January 15, 1966. He was the first and only Premier of the Northern Nigeria region from 1954 to 1966. And he remains the foremost northern leader dead or living.