Zik’s Mausoleum, Onitsha: unkept, abandoned, overgrown by weeds

By Nwabueze Okonkwo

A cursory look at the edifice known as Zik’s Mausoleum, the final resting place of the first President of Nigeria and the Owelle of Onitsha, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, one would not need to be told that it is not given the deserved attention, going by its present state of bushy and unkept nature.

The place for the Mausoleum was mapped out by the late Zik himself when he was alive as his final resting place, and he erected some structures there as a typical Onitsha man, from where he would go to his Onuiyi Haven at Nsukka in Enugu State, until his demise on May 11, 1996, at the age of 92.

During his burial in 1996, when the Federal Government decorated him as a Field Marshall, the then Military Head of State, Late General Sani Abacha, represented by the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Oladipo Diya, announced that the Federal Government had awarded a contract for the expansion and beautification of the Mausoleum in honour and recognition of Zik’s contributions towards the unification of the Nigerian nation.

The initial contract for the construction of the Zik Mausoleum was awarded in 1997 by the Abacha regime to Messrs Lemmy Akakem for N350 million.

It was abandoned and overtaken by weeds until it was re-awarded in 2013 by the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan regime to a French construction company at N1.49 billion.

Upon coming to power in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari gave marching orders to his Works Minister, Babatunde Fashola, that the contractor must deliver the job by October 2018.

Eventually, the late Buhari completed the project and commissioned it to the delight of Ndigbo and Nigerians in general.

The Zik Mausoleum consists of the museum housing Zik’s grave and an administrative unit on two floors.
The administrative block is made up of a reception, offices, conference halls, VIP lounge, museum-cum-archives, video display room, research, library, documentation section, and conveniences.

The Zik Mausoleum follows in the line of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the grave of King Mausolus of Persia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

But after the completion and commissioning ceremony, the projects appeared to have been abandoned to its fate, allowing the entire compound to be overgrown with weeds as at the time of filing this report.
In the compound, one of the security guards disclosed that apart from the ongoing renovation of one of the buildings behind the Mausoleum being carried out by Zik’s wife, both the federal and Anambra State governments have not shown any concern in keeping the place tidy, not to mention upgrading it to a tourism attraction.

The security guard lamented that for years now, nothing tangible is happening at the compound as the Museum, the Library and the Hall are not functional but under lock and key, adding that many visitors who came all the way from Asia, Europe, Africa and other parts of the world, usually end up making uncomplementary remarks against the Nigerian government and the entire citizens for not recognising Zik’s personality as the father of “One Nigeria.”

Those who spoke to SEV along the same vein said: “Of course, the man called Zik of Africa in his lifetime would not be happy in the grave as per what his dear country has turned out to become”.

According to one of them, “the Zik Mausoleum, Zik’s resting place, in Onitsha, Anambra State, is a crucial metaphor that tugs at the challenges attending to the demise of a pan-Nigerian essence.”

They lamented that the final resting place for Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the only black Governor-General of Nigeria, the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the only Nigerian whose name appeared in the Constitution of Nigeria, among many other sterling firsts, could not be properly maintained and advanced to the level it deserves as a tourist place.

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