More controversy arises as Colonel Bello Fadile, former director of the army's legal services expresses his displeasure about being mentioned in former President Olusegun Obasanjo memoir. Read full article after the cut.
Culled from the Guardian newspaper
IN spite of the court order that has hampered the distribution, and by extension accessibility of the newly released three-part s autobiography of former President Olusegun Obasanjo entitled My Watch, the magnum opus (apology to Prof. Wole Soyinka) has continued to general reactions.
At the launch of Yinka Odumakin's Watch the Watcher: A Book of Remembrance of Obasanjo Years last Monday in Lagos, Col. Bello Fadile was loud and clear spitting anger about My Watch.
Col. Fadile, who was also jailed alongside Obasanjo in the phantom coup, described the former president as a consummate liar, whose word must never be taken seriously. He said he and his fellow colonels in the Army back then wanted Obasanjo to head the interim government that was to replace Sani Abacha, but that Obasanjo, after agreeing and signing documents, later denied being part of it. He said their plan wasn't a coup but a form of transition, which he said he made known to Abacha at the time.
"I have kept quiet for 20 years. I told him, 'don't release my letter' because there was a reason for the letter; and there was an understanding. Now, he released my letter in his new book, first without my permission, and he did not release the letter, he (Obasanjo) wrote to Yar'Adua while in prison, accepting what we did, how we got to the prison... he accepted in that letter, a copy of which I have."
According to the Director, Special Duties, Office of the National Security Adviser, the former president did not only agree to lead the interim government when formed, Obasanjo participated fully (through his coordinator - Captain Ayinde Yahya from Kwara) in planning and executing the interim government project.
"How could Obasanjo claim ignorance, when he wrote to Yar' Adua that '... You know we are here (in prison) because we wanted to put things right in Nigeria. And I beg of you, Shehu, stop smoking so that you can survive your 25 years imprisonment while I survive my 15 years... ' I have a copy of this letter hand written. The question is If Obasanjo said I implicated him, why is he admitting, in his own hand writing, he wanted to put things right... "
Col. Fadile described the letter he wrote which has now been published in My Watch as mere propaganda to save "my life, because I did not want to die. I was defending myself and I had to put up a defense. I was not suppose to tell the truth when I was defending myself. They have to prove the case against me. It is the prosecutor's duty to prove the case against me, and there was no evidence of proof. I accepted that I was planning an Interim Government. I didn't say I was planning coup. In all the statements I made, I was very clear that I wasn't planning a coup, but to install an Interim Government. And Obasanjo agreed, in a meeting with the late Yar'Adua, one Captain Ayinde Yahya, and another man who later became an ambassador (I wouldn't want to mention his name now), to head that Interim Government in Abuja. Obasanjo published my letter, but he failed to publish his own letter he wrote to Shehu Yar'Adua accepting why we went to prison. That is what is annoying, and the reason, I said he would go back to jail." Watch the Watcher... Fadile insisted "has come at the right time" and more books, he hammered, would come to reveal the liar in Obasanjo.
For 20 years, he said, "I have kept quiet. A lot of people have also kept quiet. Yinka Odumakin, with his book, Watch the Watcher, has broken the jinx... we will all take a cue from that.
"Three months ago, Odumakin reminded me that I should put all these facts against Obasanjo down in a book, but I said, I wouldn't want to heat up the polity, the love is to see to how democracy can stabilize in our country. But there are many people going about saying things... I just mentioned one ambassador now who drafted the Interim Government Speech; who composed the list of people that would form that government... all these documents are with him and very soon Nigerians will get to read about them in my book which I hope to launch on July 16, 2015, to mark 20th anniversary of the day I was condemned to death. I was later pardoned on October 16, 1995."
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