TheCable

Valentine Ashi, a judge of a high court in the federal capital territory, has ordered the Nigerian customs service to release ‘My Watch’, the autobiography of former president Olusegun Obasanjo banned in December 2014.

Buruji Kashamu, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had obtained an injunction restraining Obasanjo from releasing the book, saying the subject of the book was libelous to his person.

Kashamu also instituted a N20 billion libel case against Obasanjo for referring to him as a drug baron in an open letter to President Goodluck Jonathan in December 2013.

But Obasanjo ignored the court order and launched the book at the Lagos Country Club Ikeja on December 9.

Consequently, Ashi directed the confiscation of the book and also gave Obasanjo a 21-day ultimatum to explain why he should not be punished for flouting the court’s order.

But following an application by Kanu Agabi, former attorney-general of the federation and counsel to Obasanjo, Ashi set aside the injunction.

Agabi had sought the vacation of the orders, arguing that the court wrongly applied the law in reaching its decision.

He said the court ought to have established whether or not the publication complained about was libelous before restraining Obasnajo from engaging in further publication.

TheCable was one of the first to see My Watch, which has been described as one of the most controversial memoirs ever written by a Nigerian former public office holder.

In a series of exclusives on the book, we revealed Obasanjo’s claim that his daughter Iyabo was induced by Jonathan’s administration to write the widely-publicised open letter against him, as well as his claim that he was deceived by Yar’Adua on the severity of the health travails that eventually led to his death.

In the memoir, Obsanjo also rendered accounts of the struggles of Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC) with Yar’Adua, which he said were due to Ribadu’s refusal to marry Yar’Adua’s daughter.

Five governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had visited Obasanjo in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun state, to beg him to delay release of the book until the conclusion of the 2015 presidential election, but their effort was futile.

At the time of the visit, it was thought, erroneously, that the governors had gone to persuade the ex-president to support Jonathan’s re-election ambition.

Kashamu, one of the many people indicted by the book, subsequently secured the a court order restraining publication of the memoir or extracts from it.

One week later, Obasanjo himself confiscated the book, directing its publishers to hand over the copy to him.