Why I wrote a book on former President Jonathan – Bolaji Abdullahi
Bolaji Abdullahi, a former Minister of Youths and Sports Development under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, last year launched a book, On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria. The book has been criticised by some politica
Why did you write a book on former President Jonathan?
I wrote the book because I believed that what happened in 2015 was pivotal in the history of Nigeria. It was the first time the opposition party came to power in our history and the first time an incumbent president lost election. It was such a defining moment that I felt it was too important to be allowed to evaporate.
Of course I was more positioned to write the book because I served in the Jonathan government. I was in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before I joined the All Progressives Congress (APC), so I straddled both worlds. I also have a significant access to many of the key players of both sides at that time, so I felt it was a huge opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted.
Since the book launch, you have come under attack by the PDP, especially the Jonathan guys, claiming that you fabricated stories in the book. In their words, the book is a ‘tissue of lies.’ What’s your take on this?
I wouldn’t say I came under attack by the PDP, but rather, some of the Jonathan guys. These guys were also not really Jonathan guys because I know them. The individual that had been the most vocal about this was Reno Omokri, who was an SA to the late Oronto Doughlas. So he was not even close to the vicinity of all that happened. Secondly, at the point he was dismissing the book the way he did, it had not even come out of the print. He hadn’t read it. What I released in form of snippets was what he lagged onto. Where he said I misplaced the sequence of events, I said I did not claim that my book was a Bible or Qur’an. It was a human endeavour after all. But to take the slip in the sequence of events to dismiss a whole book the way he did was not right. As I said, none of the individuals mentioned to have played those roles at the period has come out to deny those roles mentioned in the book. They are all here or in Lagos, they are all alive and I know many of them have read the book because they have spoken to me. Not a single one of them has come out to say he did not attend that meeting. The only person that decided to say he did not play the role I said he played in the book and had threatened to go to court was the former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko. But the individual I said he pressured to prosecute Buhari at the time of the certificate forgery had come out to say he actually pressured him.
It is normal and understandable that many of these people did not expect the stories to come out. As far as they were concerned, it has happened and it’s gone. But that’s why it is important for us to keep history alive. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
Would you say your action was justified?
The only reason the former governor of Ondo State would want to deny his role is probably because he wasn’t proud of the action he took. If he was proud of it, he wouldn’t come out to try and deny it. What I’m saying is that it was a role he played in the context of history and an evolving event. It’s just like how people talk about Jonathan sacking me as his minister. That was the right thing for Jonathan to do at that time because he needed a politician to help him fight Saraki in Kwara and I was not in a position to do that. That was nothing to regret. I don’t think we should try to do a wholesale disclaimer of ourselves. If we played certain roles, we should own up to it. We should ask if our actions were justified in that context. An action justified in a particular context could be unjustified in a totally different context. Context is important, so we shouldn’t be ashamed of our actions.
You were involved in a lot of political campaigns in the Jonathan administration. Many say if you had been retained as minister you wouldn’t have written the book. Is this true?
I don’t know about that. But I think I would still have written the book even if I was retained as minister. People saying this have not read the book. The reason they are saying that is because they are under the assumption that this book was written to attack Jonathan. If they had read the book, they would see that there was no attack on Jonathan whatsoever. The reason they are saying I wouldn’t have written the book if Jonathan had retained me as minister is because they think it is from a wrong narrative.
Many people who have actually read the book were pleasantly surprised that rather than attack Jonathan, I actually tried to explain some things that happened at the time to portray him better. For example, one of the major narratives of the opposition’s campaign was that Jonathan was very tolerant of corruption. In my book, I tried to explain that he was not tolerant of corruption, but there were factors that wired him in a particular way, and he himself said it. He tried to remain loyal to friendship. If you were Jonathan’s friend, he would try not to hurt you. He is a good man. That is one problem, and sometimes in politics, we don’t need a good man. He didn’t want to hurt people he considered to be friends.