A High Court sitting in Abuja on Wednesday ordered that all copies of ‘My Watch‘, the three-volume memoirs of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, which he presented to the public on Tuesday be confiscated.
Presided over by Justice Valentine Ashi the court ordered the Inspector-General of Police, the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS) and the Comptroller of Customs to recover all the books from all book stands, sales agents, vendors, the sea and airports and deposit them with the court’s registrar pending the determination of the case. This was after the court found him guilty of contempt of court in relation to the presentation of the book.
The court had given an injunction barring the former President from releasing his autobiography. But at the event, Obasanjo slammed the judge saying the injunction was given by the court after official close of work.
He also said he has already published the material before the ruling came.
On Thursday, the judge ordered that Obasanjo should give the court convincing reason why he should not be sent to jail for contempt of court.
Ashi said the fact that the book had been published before the order was immaterial, adding that the former President should not have published the book since the case involving Kashamu’s integrity was still in court.
Ashi ruled: “As long as the substantive suit is not yet determined, no party is entitled to publish or comment on material facts that are yet to be decided on by the court.
“I hold the defendant, not only in contempt of the court, but to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt and ordered to undo what he has wrongly done.
“The defendant, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo shall be given 21 days, from the day this order is served on him, to show cause, via affidavit, why he should not be punished for contempt committed by publishing and distributing for sale to the public, the book, My Watch, in plain disregard of the pendency of substantive the suit and the order of this court made on December 5, 2014 restraining him from doing so.
“The defendants, whether by himself, agents, servants, privies or whatever name called, is hereby restrained from further publication or offering for sale or distribution, in any way or manner, the book called My Watch or the like of the visual or written materials which contains a re-publication or statement extracted from the letter referred to by the plaintiff.”
Ashi ordered that orders of the court relating to the issue be served on all media houses in the country and on Obasanjo by publication in two national dailies, opposed argument by Obasanjo’s lawyer, Realwon Okpanach, that Kashamu did not present a copy of the book to show that his image was maligned, adding that it is the defendant that should convince the court on this.
Okpanach later disclosed that Obasanjo would appeal the order within 14 days since it was given in error as it was not proven that the book contained libellous materials.
According to him, the orders made cannot be enforced.
Okpanach argued: “They want the court to stop an act that had been concluded. That is impossible. We had published the book in November, they came before the court in December and asked that the publishing should be stopped. Is that possible?”
The book contains damning but controversial revelations by Obasanjo against some prominent Nigerians and some of his aides while he was President of the country.
