Encomium
Former spokesman of late President Umar Yar’Adua and columnist, Olusegun Adeniyi has responded to some of the mind-boggling revelations and salacious allegations contained in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s latest memoirs, My Watch…and at the end of it all, described the two-term President as acrimonious and cantankerous.
In a column today (Thursday, December 11, 2014), Adeniyi said, “Yet it is tragic that a man who has given so much time and energy to national service evokes such overwhelmingly negative perceptions; from his family to the man on the street. Therefore, it ought to worry Obasanjo that this quality of personal acrimony and cantankerous disposition has remained a feature of his writing from “My Command” to “Not My Will” and now to “My Watch”.
“It is very sad that Obasanjo cannot grow beyond an obsession with the dominance of the first person singular (“My”) in his various changing memoirs. However, since his most recent one touches on the integrity and national roles of so many well meaning Nigerians, I am not likely to be the last person to raise a voice of protest against his unbecoming selective insults.
“Obasanjo feels rightly or wrongly that the people he helped to positions of authority and power, especially Yar’Adua and Jonathan, have behaved badly to him. And evidently, he is a man who believes that if you are his friend, his enemies must also be your enemies to demonstrate loyalty. Yet whatever anger he may feel, Obasanjo should have considered his pre-eminent position in Nigeria and Africa before writing some of the things he did, especially in the volume three of his book subtitled “Now and Then”. I don’t know how he believes such tales would elevate him.”
Adeniyi’s name, as well as those of scores of Nigerians, was mentioned in the book released on Tuesday, December 9, 2014.
Olusegun Adeniyi’s column is titled, ‘Obasanjo’s missiles are unguided, and won’t hit target.’
