Before We Forget: Obasanjo’s Letter To President Jonathan And The Aftermath; Francis Abayomi (ed); Peace and Development Projects (PEDEP), Ogba, Lagos; 2014; 273 pp.

Nigerians need to be constantly reminded of when the rain started beating the country. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter to then-President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan set off a chain of events that led to where the country now stands on a cliff edge.

Before We Forget is divided into four broad parts. The first part contains Obasanjo’s letter, President Jonathan’s reply, Obasanjo’s daughter Iyabo’s letter to her father, Chief EK Clark’s letter, former Senate President Ameh Ebute’s letter, and Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo’s diatribe. The second part contains a broad spectrum of rejoinders from the media. The third part deals with opinions from columnists, bloggers, and sundry newspapers. The fourth and final part is a compilation of comments on various websites and social media platforms.

In his letter entitled “Before it is too late”, Obasanjo wrote: “Mr. President, you have on a number of occasions acknowledged the role God enabled me to play in your ascension to power. You put me third after God and your parents among those that have impacted most on your life.” The letter, “dated December 2, 2013, was leaked to the media on December 11, 2013.” Obasanjo states as a sort of epilogue that he had discussed the contents of the letter with General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, General Yakubu Danjuma and Dr. Alex Ekwueme, “whose concerns for and commitments to the good of Nigeria have been known to be strong.”

In his reply, President Jonathan states, inter alia, to Obasanjo “that you have done me grave injustice with your public letter in which you wrongfully accused me of deceit, deception, dishonesty, incompetence, clannishness, divisiveness, and insincerity, among other ills.”

Well, before President Jonathan published his reply, Obasanjo’s daughter, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, had sent a stinker to her father as published by Vanguard. Quoting Menchus, the 4^th Century Chinese philosopher, as per “The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart”, Iyabo dismisses her father as a “Mr. Know it All” who insists on overshadowing everybody, stressing, “… you surround yourself with idiots who will agree with you on anything and need you for financial gain and you need them for your insatiable ego…Nigeria has descended into a hellish reality where smart, capable people to ‘survive’ and have their daily bread, prostrate to imbeciles.”

In his letter entitled “Let the truth be told before it is too late”, Chief EK Clark wrote: “My dear Obasanjo, your allegation that President Jonathan is training snipers in preparation for 2015, is a diabolical concoction and a figment of your imagination.”

For Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, Obasanjo is spearheading a secret agenda. The publication of Before We Forget was of course viewed in certain quarters as serving some interests.

What really matters now is that this kind of documentation serves the distinct purpose of keeping records in the public domain.

Given what is happening in Nigeria today, it is indeed worthy to recall this book entitled Before We Forget: Obasanjo’s Letter To President Jonathan And The Aftermath. Nigeria can never be the same again after that letter from Obasanjo to Jonathan.   

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist, and author.

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.