‘I’m surprised at reactions to my book on Yar’adua’

  Segun Adeniyi does not immediately strike you as one who had been at the centre of one of the greatest saga in Nigeria’s recent political history. On the two or three occasions I have seen him, he has cut the image of a humble person, albeit one who has seen a lot, and is […]

 

Segun Adeniyi does not immediately strike you as one who had been at the centre of one of the greatest saga in Nigeria’s recent political history. On the two or three occasions I have seen him, he has cut the image of a humble person, albeit one who has seen a lot, and is ready to tell a little.

His latest book Power Politics and Death, which happens to be his third, touches on the controversial days of President Umaru Yar’adua. Segun Adeniyi had been the spokesman of the president and had had the difficult job of speaking for a president Nigerians had not seen in months. The book has been flying off the shelves despite it relatively high cost. It has been selling at N6, 000 a copy but still became a best seller.

“I don’t know about that,” he said modestly as I mentioned it to him on the lounge of an Abuja hotel. He quickly adds “I am happy that the book has been accepted. When I was writing it I knew it was going to generate some interest but I didn’t imagine it will generate as much interest as it has done. So it’s rewarding for me that I wrote a book and it’s generally accepted.”

But the book was always going to be controversial right from when he muted the idea of writing it to some people.

“They were saying No, you don’t do that here, this is not America, you don’t leave office and write a book,” he said, “Interestingly those who were against the book from the onset are now saying if you had come to us, we would have talked to you. So at least, that myth has been shattered. To that extent I feel I have done something to feel proud about.”

Prior to our meeting, Adeniyi had been at Infusion, a popular literary event in Nigeria’s capital and had been received by a horde of eager readers. He had apparently won the crowd over when he subsidized his own book by 50 per cent for those who bought it at the reading.

Eventually, it had been more a question and answer session than a reading. Adeniyi had been put through his paces by the audience who wanted to know why he was soft on Turai Yar’adua’s role in the saga among other things.

‘I didn’t serve Turai’

He had explained that from the moment the job of being the presidential spokesman was forced on him, he made his mind not to get too close to the first lady on accounts of his belief that the easiest way to get into trouble at your job is through the boss’ wife.

He had explained that he was soft on Turai’s role because he considered that she had just lost her husband and he had not wanted to be insensitive to her situation.

At our subsequent chat, I asked him if he felt he had done justice to his reader, by playing down the role of purportedly one of the most powerful women in Nigeria at one of its most critical periods.

“Well, I didn’t serve Turai Yar’adua, I served Umaru Yarádua. She had her own press secretary. If he feels justified to write about her, he can do that. What I did was to document the government of Yar’adua and what happened in the last days. I didn’t feel she was important to the narrative to document whatever was credited to her. The bit I wrote about her was to dimiss the claims that there was a cabal she headed because there was no such thing. Yes, she was the only one who could grant access to her husband the president but I don’t think that amounted to a cabal running government because I knew that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was effectively running government in his capacity as acting president.”

Not surprisingly, many people, especially at the Infusion reading, felt he should have been more open about Mrs Yar’adua’s role at the time. One would have thought Adeniyi was doing the first lady a favour but that apparently isn’t the case, he said.

“She wasn’t even happy with the book because the family felt that the president’s illness should be a family secret, that I am revealing family secrets and all that, but I took all that in my stride,” he said.

Paid to write the book?

There have been insinuations that Adeniyi might have been paid by certain individuals to write his bestselling book. Turai and the Yar’adua camp have been mentioned. The latest name coming up is that of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Adeniji had heard some of these allegations but he had seemed genuinely shocked when I asked him if  “You read the book, you are a critical person,” he said, “Do you think Goodluck Jonathan will pay me to write a book that some people are saying I disparaged his wife?

“I am hearing it for the first time. What I have been hearing all along is that Yarádua’s people paid me to write the book so now that I am hearing this . . .” he had shrugged and seemed genuinely flummoxed by the allegation.

Earlier he had explained how he made up his mind to write the book and what drove him.

“I always loved writing. During the third term saga I wrote The Last One Hundred Days of Abacha, which was actually to warn Obasanjo that we have seen something like this before, under Abacha, because the same people that were goading him [Abacha] on then are the same people that were goading Obasanjo on. I have always been interested in documenting history and to that extent I knew I was going to render an account when I left office [as Yar’adua’s spokesman] but I never imagined that the government I served was going to end in such a dramatic manner, which even made it more compelling for me to write,” he had said.

Fallouts

Adeniyi’s book struck a number of nerves. Characters like erstwhile Governor of Delta State, James Ibori and Yar’adua’s controversial Attorney General to the Federation Michael Aondoakaa could be classified as the villains in the intrigues that characterised Yar’adua’s presidency. Adeniyi’s book cast them in not too complimentary a light and I asked him if there have been any fallouts from his authoring the book.

“Before I joined government I was a reporter and editor and a columnist and before I write some articles you hear people saying be careful or are you not afraid but I have not had any unpleasant experiences,” he said.

James Ibori, had loomed larger than life and had charges of corruption against him struck out by a court during Yar’adua’s term. Why had Ibori enjoyed so much protection from Yar’adua who prided himself on the rule of law? Adeniyi had in his book confessed how he had been baffled by Ibori’s boldness and the impunity with which he operated during Yar’adua’s reign. He repeated this when I asked him about it.

“I never understood it, I have never understood it. Maybe one day Aandoaaka will provide an explanation since Yaradua is no longer alive to defend himself because I never understand why James Ibori will be treated as if he is above the law,” he said.

Interestingly, a London court had just convicted Ibori of money laundering and I asked Adeniyi if he felt vindicated by the verdict.

“I don’t feel justified, I feel sad for him that it has ended like this. It probably would not have ended this way if he had stayed here and faced the issues rather than trying to circumvent the law as he did. I don’t feel happy about what happened to him but I feel it should be a lesson to him and people like him,” he said.

Myth of the cabal

During Yar’adua’s health crisis, there were talks of a cabal supposedly led by Turai Yar’adua who purportedly held the country to ransom. Adeniyi’s book claimed that a cabal never existed and went as far as claiming that former Minister of the Federal Capital, Nasir El-Rufai claimed to have fabricated the myth of the cabal. El Rufai has never denied this claim.

“I didn’t lie about him, he can’t deny it. There were people there, there were witnesses. It wasn’t even in his car it was in the car of Mr. Isiah Balat. It was what he said

“If you are talking about cabal you will be talking about people who wanted to take power and people who didn’t want to relinquish power so in that respect even though the president was there, he couldn’t take any decision and the only person who could was Turai Yar’adua and since she didn’t …” he shrugged and left the sentence hanging.

But at Infusion, when a member of the audience had charged Adeniyi with being part of the problem since they had not asked Yar’adua to resign, Adeniyi had shrugged and said, “We didn’t ask Yar’adua to resign so I take all that he [the audience member] said in good faith.”

Finally, I asked him if he felt satisfied with the role he had played during the saga that had strained Nigeria’s fragile democracy and he said, “It’s like any job you take, you make mistakes. There are times when you make mistakes and I made some while in office and I admit them but on a balance, I did what I did on conviction, not on any self aggrandizement. Everything I did, I did based on the information available to me at the time, not that I was pushed to do anything. To that extent I feel satisfied.”