The ‘islamisation’ of his house

Early this week The Nation reported that the Senate committee on the FCT had been told that the extra N9 billion needed to complete the VP’s official residence was budgeted to accommodate his ‘taste.’ Apparently the VP’s taste was so expensive that it will cost the Nigerian taxpayer more than the original amount budgeted for […]

Early this week The Nation reported that the Senate committee on the FCT had been told that the extra N9 billion needed to complete the VP’s official residence was budgeted to accommodate his ‘taste.’ Apparently the VP’s taste was so expensive that it will cost the Nigerian taxpayer more than the original amount budgeted for the whole building which was N7 billion. But the catch was that this ‘taste’ was necessitated by his religion and culture, so the contractor handling the project estimated that only a whooping N9 billion could do the trick.

According to Senator Domingo Obende, vice-chairman of the Senate committee on the FCT, a Julius Berger engineer, who was talking on behalf of the company, had told him this. He quoted the engineer as saying, ‘Well the design of this building was made to accommodate a vice-president (then Dr Goodluck Jonathan) but now we have another vice president (Arc. Namadi Sambo) whose culture and religion are different from the intended user or end user of the building.’ So this justifies a N9 billion alteration?

In any case what does it take to Islamise a building? For a Muslim man with more than one wife, it is usually the need to accommodate each wife comfortably and independently of another. Such an effort will require giving each wife a separate apartment with an independent sitting room, kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms. In the case of a Muslim man with the maximum four wives, this will mean having to carve out four apartments out of the one-man, one-wife plan of the original building. Former Vice-president Atiku Abubakar handled this admirably well when he allowed only his first wife, Hajiya Amina Titi, to live in the official residence and kept all the others in his personal houses in different parts of the country.

But with Vice-President Muhammad Namadi Sambo, the problem of balkanising his official residence to accommodate four wives does not even arise because he had been so remarkably modern as to have only one wife. So the first reason to ‘Islamise’ the VP’s new home is even non-existent. Now, the second reason to ‘Islamise’ a building is usually to build a small, personalised mosque, irreverently known around here as ‘Allah ga Na ka.’ This name came to be because an in-house mosque is a new phenomenon generally associated with big public officers, military top brass and other high net worth individuals, who would rather attend congregational prayers within the four walls of their homes than join the neighbourhood public mosque.

This derogatory name, which literally means ‘God, here is Your own’ is coined because ordinary folks believe that the owners of these modern mansions are trying to tell The Almighty that ‘We are now wealthy enough to build and live in such grand buildings, but we haven’t forgotten you O God, so here is Your own.’ Luckily for Arc Namadi Sambo, the Julius Berger guys have already designed and built an ‘Allah ga Na ka’ within his new residential premises. Because according to the report of the Senate committee ‘there is a chapel and a mosque on the left and right hand side of the house.’ So again the second reason to ‘Islamise’ the official vice-presidential residence is non-existent. The house is actually designed to accommodate both a Muslim and a Christian VP. So what cultural and religious taste does Julius Berger need to accommodate using an astronomical N9 billion?

Definitely the Senate committee on the FCT deserves commendation for living up to its oversight functions and for not being intimidated by the fact that the request was for a project related to the nation’s Second Citizen. Like its vice chairman, Senator Domingo Obende observed ‘The size of the land has not changed. I really don’t understand what kind of private structure on a land that is less than 20,000 square metres will take about N16.5 billion to complete.’ Yet the committee must go further than this, it must dig deep to find out who is behind the attempt to swindle the nation. The fact that the engineers are already willing to bring down the completion budget from N9 to N6 billion is an admission that the first figure was arrived at with a fraudulent intent. And this is not to say that the new figure nearly reflects what is actually needed to round up the project. Rather it just means that it is a concession the fraudsters are ready to make because they still stand to gain much even without the N3 billion deducted.

Remember that this is a house which the committee says is about 90% complete. In their own words ‘The vice-president’s residence is a sprawling one-storey building sitting on a wide expanse of land beside the Millennium Park and behind the yellow house headquarters of the State Security Service. The building has wide outer and inner parlours with rooms. There is a chapel and mosque on the left and right hand side of the house. The building has been plastered and work is going on the central cooling system. The inner parlour has marble tiles. The sewage and water systems have been completed. There are no furniture items or any furnishing yet. The doors and windows are yet to be fixed. The landscaping of the compound has commenced but the roads are not tarred nor the floors tiled.’ This certainly does not portray a project that needs more than one tenth the original budget to complete.

The Vice-President himself deserves kudos for openly coming out to dissociate himself from the overinflated budget. This act of honesty and integrity will surely make it easier for the Senate committee to do the necessary investigation in order to bring to book those who wanted to use his name to steal the nation’s funds. Part of a statement issued by his special adviser on Media and publicity Malam Umar Sani, which was published in the New Nigerian of Tuesday 25th December reads: ‘It should be known that the concept and choice of a residential accommodation was purely by the professionals in the FCT administration, and never has he (The VP) ever interfered with the budgetary requirements or cost associated with the construction….. It should therefore be carefully understood and appreciated that the Vice-President has nothing to do with the construction of the new residence in question, as it is not his personal property but the residence of any Nigerian vice president. He should therefore not be connected with the expenditure of the construction.’ Very well said Mr VP.

Here I would like to enlist the help of the honourable minister of the FCT Senator Bala Mohammed to immediately set up a probe panel in order to fish out which directors or FCT professionals are in collusion with the contractors to steal these billions of naira in the name of ‘Islamising’ the VP’s residence. As a Nigerian taxpayer for the last twenty years, I am particularly pained that monies which can be channelled to productive or otherwise essential sectors of our economy are being stolen in broad day light by unscrupulous civil servants and greedy contractors. Can you imagine how many dialysis machines can be purchased with N9 billion if the money were to be channelled to the health ministry? We could very well wake up one day to find every government-owned hospital in the country able to treat kidney failure without referring patients elsewhere.

Whatever they do, the senate committee on FCT must make sure that heads roll over this attempt to rob the Nigerian taxpayer. And I hereby humbly recommend the sum of one billion naira only, as the additional money needed to make the VP’s new house habitable. Even in an expensive city like Abuja, N1 billion can buy one a grand, world-class mansion. Using the same amount to tar the VP’s driveways, tile his rooms, purchase Italian furniture and Persian rugs can all be comfortably undertaken with this sum. Now that we know there is no reason to reflect his ‘religious and cultural tastes,’ we can’t be deceived into supporting this crime.