By Alex Ter Adum
Olusegun Obasanjo’s My Watch is marketed as a memoir of conscience, a moral ledger of power and responsibility. Yet its most sensational passages—particularly the allegations of corruption and sundry misconduct against Atiku Abubakar—collapse under legal scrutiny and ethical reasoning. In a constitutional democracy governed by law rather than memory, allegation is not evidence; recollection is not proof; and personal grievance, however eloquently expressed, is not guilt.
The fundamental defect of Obasanjo’s claims is procedural emptiness. Atiku Abubakar served eight uninterrupted years as Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under Obasanjo’s direct authority. During that period, he was not convicted by any court of law, not removed from office through constitutional means, and not successfully indicted on any corruption charge. In law, this is not a footnote; it is decisive.
The Nigerian Constitution does not recognize guilt by memoir. It recognizes due process, investigation, charge, trial, and judgment.
A President who genuinely believes his Vice President has committed grave crimes does not wait for the comforts of retirement to publish accusations. He invokes the law while in office. He authorizes investigation. He submits evidence. He allows the courts to speak. Obasanjo did none of these in any conclusive manner. Instead, Nigerians are offered a troubling theory of governance: that a President may knowingly preside over monumental corruption, retain the alleged culprit for political convenience, benefit from his electoral machinery, and only discover moral urgency after leaving power. That is not accountability; it is retrospective heroism.
Legally, the allegations in My Watch fail the most elementary test: proof. The burden of proof in criminal or quasi-criminal allegations never shifts to the accused merely because the accuser once wielded power. A former President’s word, however forcefully written, is not evidence. Courts require documents, sworn testimony, and cross-examination. Books provide none of these. Memoirs are not affidavits; publishing houses are not courts of competent jurisdiction.
Satirically—and perhaps tragically —My Watch portrays corruption as a strange phenomenon that flourished luxuriantly in Obasanjo’s administration while remaining curiously invisible to the man at the helm. Contracts misbehaved, institutions wobbled, and scandals brewed, yet responsibility is consistently outsourced to subordinates, particularly the Vice President. This moral geometry is convenient: blame flows downward; authority floats upward; accountability evaporates entirely.
Even more revealing is the selective indignation that animates the book. The narrative is generous with accusations against Atiku but sparing—sometimes evasive—about controversial policies, failed reforms, and executive excesses undertaken under Obasanjo’s own watch. Corruption, in this telling, is always personal, never systemic; always individual, never institutional; always Atiku’s, never the administration’s. This is not the posture of a reformer. It is the reflex of a man unwilling to confront his own record with the same severity he applies to others.
From a moral standpoint , there is also the problem of complicity. If Obasanjo’s allegations were true as presented, then the inevitable conclusion is not merely the guilt of Atiku Abubakar but the failure of Obasanjo himself. A President who tolerates, conceals, or delays action against corruption at the highest level becomes, at best, negligent and, at worst, complicit. My Watch unintentionally indicts its author as much as its target.
The law is unambiguous on this point: authority carries responsibility. You cannot preside over eight years of governance, exercise sweeping constitutional powers, and later plead helplessness while distributing blame in print. Power unused against wrongdoing is not innocence; it is abdication.
Ultimately, My Watch does not convict Atiku Abubakar. It exposes a dangerous tendency in Nigerian public life: the substitution of personal narrative for institutional process, and of moral posturing for legal accountability. History is not written by assertion but by evidence. Justice is not served by accusation but by adjudication. Democracy is weakened, not strengthened, when former leaders turn memoirs into courts and readers into jurors.
If Atiku Abubakar is guilty of any crime, the Constitution provides a forum, procedures, and remedies. Until a court of law so declares, Nigerians are entitled—legally, morally, and democratically—to treat Obasanjo’s allegations for what they are: unproven claims, published too late for justice, too conveniently for politics, and too weak to substitute for the rule of law.
Alex Ter Adum, Ph.D is the Deputy Director General, THE NARRATIVE FORCE