By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
Great infrastructural development unequivocally remains one of the critical indices for good governance – a dividend of democracy.
Alltimepost.com, in the performance of its role as an ombudsman of governance and accountability recently visited one building complex known to have been abandoned for over 40 years – the Palm House on Sapele Road in Benin City, Edo State of Nigeria.
According to those who are familiar with its history, the Palm House which was built by the Military Government of Late Retired General Samuel Ogbemudia, to house ministries and agencies in the 70s, derived its name from the two or three Palm Trees in front of the buildings.
Then, the state from which the present Edo and Delta were carved out was known as
Bendel – and to put it in proper perspective, due to its fame arising from its status of the undisputed leader in sports, it became known as ‘Bendel number one.’
Known at the time for its characteristic description as a “civil servant city” due to lack of industries, the palm house with the massive structures comparable with buildings in the Western world became a pride of not only Benin City, but the then Bendel State as whole.
Then, palm house was an ultra-modern 12-storey building complex, with elevators, central air-conditioning system and other amenities that clearly defined comfort, imbued with the charming ability to attract honor to those who were privileged to call it a place of work – and of course, life was then good.
As at that time, only three of the five high-rise buildings, consisting of 12-floors were completed – the Palm House itself, the secretariat building which has eight floors and a two-storey Civil Service Commission building.
The two other buildings – blocks C and D were not completed. In 2008 however, a contract was awarded for the completion of block D. Even though it was completed, the place remained desolate. As time went on though, the entire complex once known as the pride of Bendel began to fall apart.
Prior to 2008 when the contract for the completion of Block D was awarded, a mysterious fire gutted the 9th and 10th Floors of the Palm house. There are speculations that the slide in the fortunes of this famous edifice began from thence.
There are records that from a probe put in place in 2010, certain police officers had converted the completed block D into some sort of residential quarters. That apart, the building became all-comer’s affair with the erection of shanty huts and shipping containers were converted to business centers.
“You do not expect people to work in this condition and get results. This complex was designed and most of it constructed almost 40 years ago. So the decay started quite a while ago,” Governor Obaseki was reported to have said after he visited the Palm House three years ago.
Signs of the fire that gutted the 9th and 10th Floors were still very much in evidence. Weeds, gutters and ponds littered the place, and a general atmosphere of unkemptness pervaded the place.
But Alltimepost.com was in for a pleasant surprise after taking a turn, from the old and worn out Palm House. The skies suddenly seemed to have become bluer and the grass was a little bit greener than the weeds in front of the Palm House.
Looking around, images reminiscent of famous cities like Copenhagen, Houston Texas, Philadelphia, Ohio, Mississippi plain came into plain view. But no, this was not one of those cities but the once-abandoned 40-year old Blocks C and D of the Ogbemudia era.
In opulence and taste, these buildings – the newly renovated blocks C and D, together with a Civic Centre, and the ambience they conjured are a testimony to the power of resolve and political will by the current administration in Edo State.
Alltimepost.com Special Correspondents entered one of the buildings, the Civic Centre, being used on the day of visit for the validation and verification of the certificates of Edo State teachers.
First, it had a roof from where anyone can get a bird’s eye view of the picturesque landscape. The ceiling of the Civic Centre is a shade of sky-blue, with a dash of white painting.
An official insisted we delete all the pictures we took inside the Civic Centre since the building has not been officially commissioned for use.
If indeed the present governor, Godwin Obaseki, had said that he was going to do a ‘total overhaul,’ and ‘look at the entire gamut,’ he has done so indeed and somewhat surpassed expectations in that regard.
Set against the High Court, the EFCC, the NUJ Press Centre and the state police buildings, the Palm House, Blocks D and C, are in their grandest positions once again.
But the Palm House has not been the only institution that has felt the overhaul that Governor Obaseki Godwin promised. State of the Art buildings and infrastructure dot the High Court premises. They are all newly constructed, and look dandy indeed.
Akhere Ekhomun, 53, is a teacher and father of a 17 year-old son. According to him when he came to Benin City in the early 80s, the Palm House was like a tourist attraction. “For most of us then, the only building we compared this place to is the Cocoa House in Ibadan that we had read about in our Social Studies Classes,” he said.
Mr. Ekhomun however lamented that successive military and civilian governments fed fat on the decay and abandonment that bedeviled the Palm House. He said that there were allegations that contracts upon contracts were awarded, but none saw to the construction of the Blocks C and D of the Secretariat Complex.
Nevertheless while Edo residents appear happy at the overhaul that the Secretariat building has experienced, many appear skeptical that the buildings have indeed been revamped.
Some Facebook friends of Alltimepost.com Special Correspondent said they were not sure the pictures on his wall were pictures of Benin City, Edo State.
Others ascribed a political undertone to the Facebook post, and one or two, including Momoh Idris, Business Day correspondent in Benin were not complimentary their analysis of the evolution of the Palm House Blocks C and D.
According to Idris, the pictures were from a “sycophant and busybody, and time will tell.” Another resident of Benin City, Kinsley Abavo said that pictures of the renovated abandoned 40 year-old secretariat building “is not good enough parameter to measure good performance of pro-people administration,”
While investigating this story though, Alltimepost.com found out that though the blocks C and D were nearly done and dusted, there are issues related to proper drainage.
Pools of water in the parking lots of one of the buildings were a sign that proper environmental impact assessment may not have been carried out. There is also very strong evidence that other sections of the Secretariat building were receiving attention, and if that be the case, there would definitely be what looks like an American City in Benin City, Edo State, at the end.
But at what cost has this entire project taken place? Prior to publishing, Alltimepost.com sought and received a scheduled appointment for Thursday June 4, 2020 at 9:30am with the secretary to Edo State Government, Barr. Osarodion Ogie, to shed light on this.
Unfortunately again though, this meeting did not hold, and requests to speak with the government media and public affairs team at Osadebey Avenue also did not yield any result.
But Alltimepost independent investigation however revealed that the Obaseki government through the Ministry of Works as procuring entity paid a contractor, Los-gemmas Limited, an initial mobilization fee of nearly N30million in the first phase out of the 116million it had budgeted for the renovation of the Ministry of Justice complex.
It would be of interest to Edo people to know what sums were expended on the 40 year-old abandoned blocks C and D of the Secretariat in Benin overtime.
Resident too have already started asking to know the contract sums awarded during successive military and civilians administrations that abandoned the Palm House.
Etemiku is Alltimepost.com Special Correspondent and Editor-In-Chief of Bob MajiriOghene Communications in Benin City.
