More On The Spiritual Side Of Aso Villa

Further to Reuben Abati’s piece on the spiritual side to Aso Villa, I wish to add certain occurrences within the official residence of Nigeria’s president that lend credence to his conclusion that evil forces may have overtaken the villa.

But let me address the two issues that dominated the reactions that trailed the piece. Some tried to downplay the existence of such powers, while others saw it as another form of sour graping by Abati for losing his place at the Villa.

For the first; It is clear that the reactions lack both historical and spiritual bases and may have been spurred largely by ignorance. Because even if we are to ignore the spiritual dimensions to the setting up of communities in pre-colonial Africa, the religions we have embraced , have equally spoken about the existence of supernatural forces and the reality of alternative means to materialism.

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In Christianity, we saw the case of Jesus being tempted by the devil, where the latter took him to a hill and showed Him all the magnificence and splendor that existed and asked Jesus to bow to him if He desired to have that.

Then in another instance, while Jesus was teaching, he asked , “what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

The two instances point to the fact there are contending forces for the spiritual and material well being of man; one being evil which demands something invaluable in exchange for material things and the other good, which makes no such demand but recommends discipline, self sacrifice and patience to attain to goodness.

Now to those who believe Abati was crying because he lost the opportunity to be in the villa, as unfortunate as this point of view is, let me offer, that after perusing the piece several times, I have not seen the slightest indication of regret or envy.

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Nowhere in the piece did Abati try to lampoon either the office of the president or any other one in the villa. The focus of the piece is the presidential villa, the abode and office of the Nigerian president. He did not say the position or any other one in the villa is evil, what he is said is that certain evil practices may have taken place within the perimeters of the villa which potency may not have been broken over the years and may have been responsible the administrative flip flops and policy somersaults we have witnessed frequently from our political leaders as well as deaths and sickness of the occupants of the villa.

Abati was even kind enough; he went ahead to offer a solution by saying that if he becomes the president of Nigeria, he would turn the place into a museum and build a presidential villa where he will dedicate to God.

He even went ahead to point out certain happenings beyond the tenure of his principal to prove the sincerity of purpose.

But to take the matter beyond the few examples Abati had given, I wish to add the following if only to underscore the point that all may not be well in the villa.

In the year 2000, the now rested Post Express newspapers ran a story about certain bats that had taken over the villa. The reporter, Josiah Emerole, who did the story, tried to find out the origin of the bats and from the responses he got which he included in the story, they pointed at the first occupant of the Aso villa, Ibrahim Babangida.

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Some of the sources he spoke with in the report said the bats were at the offcial residence of the president when he was at the Dodan Barracks in Lagos and that immediately the seat of power moved and the then number one man moved to the Aso Villa in Abuja, the bats moved with him. Curiously however, the bats have refused to move out even after IBB had left the villa.

In all literature I have read both as a kid and as an adult , all references to bats have been evil. Their nocturnal nature, their blind state, the proclivity to hang up side down and their association with vampires makes everything about the bat so spooky.

Apart for the bats, the area covering the villa is also one thick forest. This I was told is due to security reasons in order to frustrate easy access to those planning evil against the president, but which better place could there be for sacrifices and black magic other than one practically carved out from a rock and surrounded by thick bushes and trees that even residents cannot access?

Perhaps there is no Nigerian president who makes light of spiritual matters like the late Abacha, so we may pick a thing or two on how he approached matters concerning the villa. Abacha, after successfully upstaging Ernest Shonekan as head of state, is known to have avoided the villa for months, choosing to stay in Lagos for more than three months before he finally moved in.

But before doing so, he made sure his band of marabouts from Senegal and other places had gone there to conduct a spiritual disinfestation of the villa as well as fumigate it against further manipulations.

Even with that fortification of the ground and air around the villa, Abacha suffered various ailments he was not known to have before moving into the villa. But because he was strong in that regard, it was obvious that it was not that arrow that brought him down when he eventually died, but that he succumbed to a clear case of poisoning.

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It was obvious that he wouldn’t have lasted one day in the villa if he had made light of the matter.

His predecessor was asked if he did not know that Abacha would try to push Shonekan out when he left him behind and his response was that he knew the man would make an attempt but never expected he would last beyond six months! Now, just put two and two together.

Years after reading the Post Express report, I had the privilege of covering the villa during the Obasanjo administration and it was while there that I saw the bats.

In the day, they hang creepily on the trees around the villa, especially the ones by the rocks.

Certain evenings, between 6:00 and 6:30 pm, that bats would start flying and the entire sky covering the villa would be covered letting down a dark cloud as if it was going to rain. Even as a young reporter, I knew that was not ordinary.

In the case of Musa Yar’adua, it was obvious that he wasn’t quite well before moving into the villa, but there was no doubt that he was able to manage his sickness as most people do, and was able to run Katisna, State for years without collapsing.

The few instances the ailment threatened, he was able to recover on first appointments with the doctors, but immediately Yar’adua entered the villa , what happened?

The ailments he usually treats on mere consultations refused go even after surgery while others more serious were added.

When he was a governor in Katsina, the ailments he was known to have been diagnosed with was kidney infection but at the time he died, he had acute pericarditis, lung cancer, Churg Strauss Syndrome and other serious ailments added .

Though his family tried to shield him from public glare when they brought him back to the villa thereby making that aspect of his life fudgy, from the many accounts offered, his state worsened far beyond what his family could have imagined, only when he returned to the villa. And this sounds likely as no sensible family would have returned their member in the vegetative state that Yar’adua relapsed into upon being returned to the villa. Unfortunately, he did not have another chance.

Obasanjo left the villa hale and hearty, but left without his wife. The point Abati made about relations of villa occupants dying mysteriously should suggest something here.

In the case of Jonathan, what probably helped him, could have been his resort, though not deliberately, to stay outside the villa for most of the time but especially in the night.

He was for instance said to prefer to spend the weekends at a partiular house at Maitama while he usually elongates his trips abroad to have enough sleep and to engage in other fancies.

This could have been his saving grace and for that, the spell, just like it happened to Obasanjo, fell on his wife who loved power and exercising authority that she was in the villa most of the time.

In her admission she underwent several serious surgeries that at a time her close friends and relations started selling her properties thinking she had died.

All these cannot be mere coincidences and the sooner we give the idea of Nigerian presidents living in one house that a certain ruler who did not want to leave power built but who only stepped aside and wanted to return to the seat of power as resident of Nigeria’s presidents the better.

The Americans can afford to have an officially designated abode for their presidents as most of their things are done openly but we cannot , as the desperation for power is such that anything can be done to get at the occupant.

It is not just the villa, I know of many governors who have refused to moved to their official residences because of the fear of their predecessors.

In plateau State, former governor Jonah Jang refused to move to the government house he inherited from his predecessor, Joshua Dariye.

It took former Gombe Stae governor, Danjuma Goje several years before he started allowing dusk meet him at the government house Gombe.

A stitch in times saves.

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