UNDER OBJs WATCH: SEGUN ADENIYI “...Segun Adeniyi, who is a poor apologist for Yar’Adua, made almost every case of reversal worse in his book. Not only is Adeniyi a poor apologist, but he also did not do a good job of denigrating Obasanjo. Rather, he showed his principal as an ingrate; mean, petty, vindictive, unfocused and rudderless; hypocritical, and a man who easily buckled under pressure. Well, maybe that was what he wanted to portray and convey. He may have boosted his own ego by his book and proved to any discerning reader that Umaru orchestrated the pull-Obasanjo-down activities at the Villa and in the government. I can only thank him for leaving nobody in doubt. “When Segun Adeniyi came to apologise to me, for the second time, at Eko Hotel in Lagos in November 2012, at the Airtel Night of Influence lecture given by Fareed Zakaria, I reiterated to him what he already knew, and that there was no need for an apology. I pointed out that an author or writer must pursue and honour truth and accuracy. Wanton disregard for accuracy, for whatever reason, might hurt the victim; and the money or reward gained by the writer can be regarded as ‘blood money’. “It is possible that Segun was showing genuine remorse – which will be good for him, the Nigerian media and even the nation – because in his subsequent column in THISDAY newspaper he reported the encounter fairly accurately. For legitimate and lasting success as a writer, your mind must be clear, your pen must be clean, your statement must be true and accurate and your bias or prejudice must be revealed. And where you have hurt others or made a mistake advertently or inadvertently you must be honest and manly enough to admit it, apologise, and make amends. “ It is also significant, and I was made to understand, that while Segun Adeniyi might have satisfied himself by rushing to write his book, Yar’Adua’s family, friends and most members of his administration were neither amused nor pleased with it for a number of reasons. Maybe he did not write to please anybody but himself by chronicling what he knew, and surmised from his narrow and limited angle of vision without any research or enquiries to get a broader perspective. I have no doubt that Segun is learning the right lessons as evidenced from his action at Zakaria’s lecture. “Segun had hand-written a letter of apology to me on 12 November 2007, calling himself ‘an opposition’ reporter, acknowledging the level of perfidy he had learned on his new job and seeking forgiveness from me. I wrote back to him, “forgiven and restored”. But from his book, the flame of opposition remained in him, to some extent...” thisdaylive/articles/obasanjo-8217-s-unguided-missiles/196346/
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 07:40:22 +0000
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