Presidency decries sorry state of Dodan Barracks

The Presidency has decried the sorry state of Dodan Barracks, the then seat of federal government in Ikoyi, Lagos.

President Muhammadu Buhari is unhappy with the general outlook of Dodan Barracks.

He said: “I was really surprised at what I saw… The place had changed! I wonder why they lost control of the aesthetics, with buildings erected indiscriminately.”

Buhari’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, was more direct on the neglect of the once fortified city.

“As we drove through Dodan Barracks, I saw vestiges of a former fortified city, where men of power lived. But the place had lost its glory. Structures had been erected indiscriminately everywhere, the buildings were dilapidating, and surely needed new coats of paints.

“The tall fence, with barbed wires, were standing like a flag at half-mast. Thy glory oh Dodan Barracks is slain upon the high places. How are the mighty fallen!

“I could not believe what I saw of the former seat of power. Unkempt is the word.”

This was the submission of Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a piece titled, ‘Buhari returns to Dodan Barracks, 37 years after’ on Friday.

The fortress became the official residence of military Heads of State. Generals Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari, and Ibrahim Babangida lived in the fortified city.

But the barracks that used to be a fortress began to lose its invincibility through military coups.

In the aftermath of the failed April 1990 coup hatched by some mid-level officers, led by Major Gideon Orkar, who stormed Dodan Barracks in a bid to overthrow Gen. Babangida, the seat of government was moved to Aso Rock Presidential Villa in December 1991 by Military President Babangida.

Disturbed with the sorry state of Dodan Barracks, the Presidential Adviser said he had to ask President Buhari some questions.

“Back in Abuja, I went to meet President Buhari. I wanted to know if it was his first visit to Dodan Barracks since that fateful day in August 1985 when he was taken away involuntarily, and what were his feelings about the state of the place?” Adesina said.

“Yes, it was my first visit since the day I was removed. I’d not been back since then, till that day,” President Buhari responded.

On the President’s take about the general outlook of the Dodan Barracks, Buhari said: “I was really surprised at what I saw. I couldn’t have found my way through, if I was alone. The place had changed! I wonder why they lost control of the aesthetics, with buildings erected indiscriminately.”

Adesina said that the then President Obasanjo had ceded Dodan Barracks to the Police in 2004. “True? If so, why is it not maintained? Why is there no development control?

“Our past military leaders lived there. It is part of our history. Even if it is to turn it to a national monument, Dodan Barracks needs to be preserved for posterity.

“I remember the tall, young, gangling Muhammadu Buhari, and his unsmiling kindred spirit, Tunde Idiagbon, holding court in those days in Dodan Barracks. They wanted to knock sense into our head as a people. Forces of revision knocked them out. And that fortress itself has been kayoed. Enfeebled. Anesthetized. Who will energize and invigorate Dodan Barracks again? A vital part of our history goes, if that place goes down,” the President’s spokesman said.

On Buhari’s experience, Adesina said: “On August 27, 1985, Gen. Buhari was taken out of Dodan Barracks.

“When the Head of State was first arrested, he was reportedly taken to Bonny Camp, a military formation in Victoria Island, Lagos, from where he was moved to a detention facility in Benin, Edo State. He was to be there for over three years. He was eventually released to live his life as a retired army officer in his Daura, Katsina home.

“Buhari left Dodan Barracks as a captive in 1985. He returned there last week, not only as a free man, but as President of the country, democratically elected, and running to the end of a second term in office.”

TheStar

Ayodele Ojo