mailutils 16.1 will not build correctly. It Fails

For some reason some lib files are not being built or  if they are
they are not getting put into where the build process looks for them.

Subject system:  ubuntu 23.04  (newly installed)

Here is the first of these errors...  (It happended for about size
other libraries.)    links to    <name>9.0.0  libs but the 9.0.0 libs
are not present.

---------- looking at the disks content


make[3]: Entering directory
'/usr/local/src/mailutils/mailutils-3.16/libmailutils/tests'
  CCLD     addr
/bin/ld: cannot find ../../libmailutils/.libs/libmailutils.so: No such
file or directory
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [Makefile:1590: addr] Error 1


ls -l /**/libmailutils.so
 -->    usr/local/src/mailutils/mailutils-3.16/libmailutils/.libs/libmailutils.so
-> libmailutils.so.9.0.0

Note: This happens with some other require  <???>9.0.0  libraries.

Any help solving this would be appreciated.
Thank you
  Darel
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