State House: A centenary of structural dilemma

And the state house today is a big complex serving as both residence and offices for both the President and the Vice-President. It houses offices for the immediate officials of the President, e.g., Chief of staff and his deputies, Principal Secretaries, the Counsel, the Physician, Media Adviser, Commanders of the Brigade of Guards, and the […]

And the state house today is a big complex serving as both residence and offices for both the President and the Vice-President. It houses offices for the immediate officials of the President, e.g., Chief of staff and his deputies, Principal Secretaries, the Counsel, the Physician, Media Adviser, Commanders of the Brigade of Guards, and the Air Fleet, as well as a myriad of other officials comprising special advisers, special assistants, administrators, all manner of professionals and experts, and all shades of security staff who all together oiled the machinery and kept the ship of the Presidency chugging along.   
Lord Lugard would probably have started with only a handful of officials when he arrived in Lagos in 1912 with a marching order to amalgamate the southern and northern Nigeria. He completed the assignment in 1914 and became officially the Governor-General of one Nigeria. His residence was the Government House on the Marina which henceforth became the State House. The building was resplendent amidst gardens with an excellent view of the port and hugged by barracks for protection. It was from here Lord Lugard reigned as the supreme ruler of Nigeria. At the close of his tenure he bequeathed the building to subsequent Governor-Generals. At independence in 1960, Nigeria’s first indigenous Governor-General, Nnamdi  Azikwe, and subsequently President in 1963, also resided in the State House marina with his office in the same premises.
By 1966 when the military struck, the leaders that took over found the marina building rather unsafe to use as a residence. Many more buildings have come up, many too close, and some too tall for comfort. In fact Alhaji Shehu Shagari related in his book “Beckoned to Service” how one of his military predecessors found it more prudent spending his nights in a naval ship berthed at the ports nearby. This was an indication that it was time to move. It became more reasonable to move to the facilities near Dodan Barracks and take full advantage of the Army unit there. Some ministerial quarters available there as well as other buildings around Dodan Barracks were sequestered and taken over to become the new State House. This is where many Nigerian Heads of State resided and operated before movement to Abuja in 1990.The building at the marina was then left to be used for state banquets, cocktails and as offices for officials.
The nucleus of present day state house started with the rather ungainly edifice “Aguda House” named after one of Nigeria’s foremost jurist and a former Chief Justice of Botswana, Chief Akinola Aguda, who chaired the committee in 1975 that recommended Abuja to emerge as the Federal capital. It was hurriedly built as a guest house for the President then in Lagos to enable him visit and supervise the progress of work in the new capital. It is now the temporary abode of the Vice-President. The Presidential Villa a more elaborate and architecturally very beautiful structure took a longer time to build. When completed, real movement of the Presidency begun in 1990. The movement continued unabated till way into the millennium. Probably the last bit to move was the state house library and archives in 2008/09.
In celebrating the centenary of the State House we pause to ponder why successive Presidents especially since the start of the Presidential system seemed to have grappled with how best to administer the place. Obviously a well-managed State House is a sine quo non for a well-managed country. After all, the entire complex machinery of the Federal Government is coordinated from there.
In countries where the Presidential system of government is practiced, the State House is normally run by a Chief of Staff. Those who were not, later found out to their chagrin that they needed to have one. Even in the U.S.A, considered to be the archetypal Presidential system, it was always an issue. Late President Ford had explained: I started out in effect not having an effective Chief of Staff and it didn’t work. So anybody who doesn’t have one and tries to run the responsibilities of the white house I think is putting too big a burden on the President himself. You need a filter, a person you have total confidence in who works so closely with you that in effect he is almost an alter ego. I just can’t imagine a President not having an effective Chief of Staff.
At the onset of our experience in 1979 with the new system, the President then decided to appoint a Chief of Personal Staff to superintend over his coterie of personal staff. It was a brand new system of government and the new President probably didn’t want to seem to be upsetting the apple-cart. A chief of Staff was not formally appointed to run the affairs of State House till 1999, when the Presidential system returned full-blast. Since, then there has been an interregnum when the office was temporarily jettisoned, but recent developments have indicated that this President wants to continue having a chief of staff.
 Over the years, the State House has grown in size and complexity. Physically the growth has been phenomenal. There is now a new office block for the Vice-President, a grander Aguda House as a temporary resident for the Vice President, another office block for the administrative staff, a new banquet hall, an improved clinic, a new chapel etc. One can only hope that when the national security situation improves, the State House could be opened to the public, as the practice world-wide, so that citizens can visit to see and appreciate this monument.
Dori has served as a Director at the State House for many years