40 years after assassination, Murtala’s cenotaph remains neglected

Stella Owanlengba and her baby seem to have found solace under a big umbrella serving as their makeshift shop. That Stella sells mobile phone recharge cards there to earn a living is, perhaps, nothing unusual. What may, however, be of interest to many is the location of her business, which is the garden that hosts the cenotaph of the late Nigerian Head of State, Gen. Murtala Ramat Muhammed.
Gunned down 40 years ago in one of the most gruesome coup plots in Nigerian history, Murtala’s memory is one that lingers in the minds of many Nigerians.  As they find it hard to do away with that memory, many are sad that the cenotaph erected at the spot he was assassinated on February 13, 1976 is left to crumble.
Stella is not only now commercially attached to the cenotaph’s environment, she has made herself its unofficial janitor, in a manner of speaking. Neighbours confirmed that the recharge card trader cleans the area regularly, a claim she was proud to assert.
 “I pick wastes and sweep the arena every morning before I commence sales, and I still do the same thing when I close in the evening,” Stella, who has been selling recharge cards there for the past five years, said.
 She is not the only one rendering such service, though. Stella’s landlord, the Federal Secretariat branch of Forte Oil, Ikoyi, undertakes the periodic burden of cutting the grass that surrounds the cenotaph. The fuel station said it has been shouldering that responsibility for some years because, to a large extent, the garden can be taken as its extension.
 When Daily Trust did a similar story on the cenotaph two years ago, a young man was seen using a grass cutter to scrape the lawn of the garden. The gardener, Abdullahi Nuhu, confirmed to this correspondent then that he was doing so on the bill of the fuel station. The station’s manager, Maureen Okafor, said the company considered it a corporate social responsibility which, she claimed, it owes history.
“Well, we are motivated to pay the gardener for the cleaning exercise for two reasons. One, we understand the import of history and consider it a privilege to be the one occupying the strategic position where the cenotaph of the late Gen. Murtala Muhammed is situated.
 “Two, the cenotaph is situated within our premises. It will not speak well of us to carry out any business activity here while the lawn leading into our premises is overgrown,” Okafor had said at the time.
Last week, when Daily Trust Saturday visited there again, nothing much has changed. The fuel station’s supervisor, Ikechukwu Duru, said the company still pays the bill for the maintenance of the cenotaph’s environment. But when confronted with the fact that the grasses were overgrown this time, Duru attributed it to the dry season. The station’s management, he said, plans to cut the lawn in the next couple of weeks.
When asked about the claim of the recharge card seller, Duru attested to it, saying, “If the woman has defaulted from regular cleaning of the garden, she would have since gone.” He added that it is even the station’s policy that any of its staff members who resumes late for work is often punished by asking him to pick paper, nylons and other forms of dirt in the garden.
Despite the fuel’s station’s efforts, the main cenotaph structure doesn’t assail the sight well. Just as we reported in 2014 that structural defects had set in for the cenotaph constructed in 1992 by the old Eti-Osa local government and which was commissioned by a former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, the same sad narrative is still in place, even on a worse scale.
Daily Trust had reported among other things that some critical components of the cenotaph’s sculpture were caving in, while other metallic objects in its composition were rusting away.
“For instance, the sculptural work depicting the cap of the late general is already distressed, while the two symbolic guns placed on the cenotaph have become corrosive. The white edifying slabs at the cenotaph are turning brownish, while the scripted plastics on the cenotaph which carry notable quotations of the late general are weathering away,” the Daily Trust had reported.
Today, the cap of the late general is no more there. It has ebbed. Other components of the cenotaph, including the symbolic guns and white edifying slab, are all in distress. Save for the metallic rail now placed around the weathering edifice and the black nylon meant to shield it but which has been torn apart by wind, nothing significant could be said to have taken place at the cenotaph between 2014 and now.
“Some unknown people actually came sometimes ago, claiming they wanted to repair it.  They were the ones who put the metal rail there. But since then, there has not been any development. As you can see, the sculptural cap is no longer there, while the nylon meant to cover it has been torn,” Stella said.
Daily Trust Saturday investigation, however, revealed that the “unknown people” Stella was referring to were the contractors engaged by the Ikoyi/Obalende Local Council Development Authority (LCDA) to rehabilitate the cenotaph. The LCDA is a subset of the Eti Osa Local Government which constructed the cenotaph 24 years ago.