The president must know this

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Inside Aso Rock

The president must know this

Written by Leon Usigbe Friday, 27 August 2010

There is this impression that the State House, Abuja, is one of the best places to work in the country.

Everyday, you go into the Presidential Villa and come across people of both sexes crisply dressed in different designers’ attires. In fact, you are constrained to think that they must be from outer space.

There is nothing to suggest in the attitude of the employees that they are not having the best of time. If anything, their carriage, their demeanour and poise reinforce the belief that Aso Rock is, indeed, where the money is and this makes it the apple of the eye of many prospective employees.

However, what happened in the last few days completely belies this as consternation could result at times from working with the president.

This is not talking about the political appointees and the red necks that are closest to the number one citizen but the foot soldiers – security, administrative staff, and drivers to even journalists.

President Goodluck Jonathan had been scheduled to visit Lagos on an official engagement in the last few days and as usual, an advance team of personnel from the presidency, relevant to the trip, had to be sent to Lagos days earlier to prepare the grounds. Probably because of the number and the cadre of those involved, they went by road. This is also normal except for the poor conditions of the road

which of course exposes every user to danger.
Abuja-Lagos would ordinarily take between seven to nine hours, everything being equal. But this trip by presidential aides took about 15 hours for various reasons but chiefly because of the poor conditions of portion of roads around Okenne and Owo in particular and traffic congestion in places like Lokoja and Ibadan.

To make matters worse, there are police check points at every one kilometre of these sections that do nothing but provide veritable platforms to blatantly extort poor and unfortunate commuters. If it were just that, may be alarm bells will not need to toll but the importance of these indiscriminate barricades is such that many lives will continued to be consumed, as more and more unsuspecting drivers run into them.

The advance team came into a portion of the road, just before Ibadan, where there had been such barricade that had now been removed obviously because of a gory accident it had caused. What was worrying was that while the spot was now abandoned by whoever may have been responsible for the accident, the stench of decomposing bodies remained heavily in the air around the area apparently because nothing had been done to dispose them off since the incident occur. Those that were killed there had families who must have been left wondering what had become of their loved ones.

There is the obvious need to step up security in the country but what the police checkpoints are causing in some parts creates more insecurity than could be imagined.

The presidential advance team made it successfully though to Lagos, but what it found waiting was unprecedented in the history of presidential trips. The terminal point was Dodan Barracks which used to be the seat of power. The once awe-inspiring abode of the nation’s past leaders is now a shadow of its former self. Even though attempts have been made to make it habitable again, such attempts have been at best, half-hearted.

Why can’t Dodan Barracks be a vacation spot for presidents, a sort of Camp David or Martha’s Vine Yard, you just wonder? Maybe that is an issue for another day, but the experience of presidential aides who were accommodated there during this trip left a lasting negative impression.

After a gruelling 15-hour journey, tens of hungry people were pressed together like sardines on the floor of a single room with just one convenience to share. The president needs to demand for details of why his advance team was so badly treated.

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