By the time of the coup of January 15, 1966, the new Premier Lodge in Kaduna, capital of the then Northern Region, had been completed. But Alhaji Ahmadu
Bello, the Premier (then Nigeria was a federation of four regions: North, West, East and Mid-West) would not move to the new lodge. For him, it was too big,
too costly and too luxurious for the leader of the North where the talakawa were in the majority. I don’t know the position of that Premier Lodge now, but it
must have been dwarfed to a modest size, not by the feat of any architect or engineer, but by the size and luxury of subsequent buildings by the successors
of Bello in Kaduna.
Is there any old Government House now that has been preserved in the original state, where you can smell the aroma of history and collide with the harried
frequency of power in ages past? One of my old colleagues was once sent by his editor to interview Chief Simeon Adebo, Nigeria’s first Permanent
Representative at the United Nations. Adebo was the first African Head of Service in the old Western Region under Chief Obafemi Awolowo as premier.
He was a contemporary to the first African Cabinet Secretary of the region, the pre-eminent historian and later vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos,
Professor Saburi Biobaku. Adebo was the right hand man of Awolowo during the Golden Years of the West when universal free primary education was introduced
and the foundation of the present Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, was laid.
The late Chief Alfred Rewane, first private secretary to Chief Awolowo, whenever he remembers those great days, his eyes would glister with the evanescence
of youth. In the early 1990s before his tragic assassination, we, Bayo Adenekan, Niyi Afuye, Dayo Adeyeye, Dokun Abolarin (now our royal father, Kabiyesi,
the Oragun of Oke-Ila, Osun State) and others, use to meet with Papa Rewane in his sprawling Ikeja residence. He would take us on a journey into the past,
full of painful nostalgia while he serves us special tea and delicacies like poppycock. Baba Adebo lived that experience.
When my colleague met with Chief Adebo, he was not in a happy mood. He had gone to Ibadan to visit the reigning military governor at that time when General
Ibrahim Babangida was the tenant of Doddan Barracks, Lagos. After their discussion, Adebo sought the powerful man’s permission to be taken to the old Premier
Office. He wanted to tread on the footpath of history and re-energise himself with the elixir of remembrance. It took awhile to get someone to locate where
the old Premier Office was.
It had now been partitioned into different offices occupied by non-descript civil servants. Adebo was close to tears. This was the same office once used by
successors of Chief Awolowo: Chief Ladoke Akintola, Dr Koyejo Majekodunmi, Lt. Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, Brigadier Oluwole Rotimi,
Admiral Akin Aduwo and Colonel David Medaiyese Jemibewon who also became the first Military Governor of old Oyo State. Adebo vowed never to go to Ibadan
again.
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