By Amir Abdulazeez, PhD
In ancient times and through the Middle Ages, people used autobiographies to share hidden truths, make confessions and communicate genuine experiences. Nowadays, they are used by politicians and world leaders for self-justification and self-glorification. Whether in the West, across Africa, or within Nigeria, the pattern remains the same—political figures use autobiographies to rewrite history in their favour, often ignoring their failures or controversies.
Between 1948 and 1954, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill published multiple volumes of memoirs portraying him as World War II’s hero. While Churchill was undeniably a key figure in the war, his narratives downplayed criticisms of his leadership, including his alleged role in the Bengal Famine of 1943, which resulted in the deaths of millions. His autobiographical works cemented his legacy as a wartime leader while sidestepping his more controversial decisions.
Modern political memoirs have increasingly become exercises in selective storytelling, where leaders carefully articulate their narratives to present themselves in the most favourable light possible. Former United States President Richard Nixon used his autobiography, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, to repair his image after the Watergate scandal. After lying about the possession of weapons of mass destruction as a justification to invade, Tony Blair’s A Journey and George W. Bush’s Decision Points cruelly and shamelessly attempted to justify their baseless war in Iraq in 2003.
Across Africa, many leaders have also engaged in the practice of using autobiographies to deny or justify their shortcomings. As good as they were, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, and Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta have all been accused of using autobiographies to exaggerate their legacies, downplay their shortcomings, and ignore controversies around their stewardships.
In Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2014 book My Watch has been widely criticised for being self-serving. While Obasanjo portrays himself as a patriot and a visionary leader, he conveniently overlooked his authoritarian tendencies and allegations of corruption and electoral fraud during his tenure.
Despite all the glaring circumstances that led to Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s decisive defeat in the 2015 Presidential elections, in his 2018 book My Transition Hours, he tried hard to justify and downplay his actions while also constructing different conspiracy theories that gave the impression that he didn’t lose the elections freely and fairly.
Just when we thought we had enough of all these politicised autobiographies, former Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has released his own memoirs. While often and correctly presented as one of Nigeria’s finest soldiers, strongest leaders, and elder statesmen, we cannot expect his memoirs to differ significantly from those of other Nigerian, African, and world leaders. IBB is unfortunate to be one of the most studied and documented Nigerian leaders, and there are numerous controversies, inconsistencies, and tactical deceptions associated with his tenure that no autobiography can reconcile.
One major criticism of IBB’s memoir is its timing. The delayed release suggests a strategic waiting period for public emotions to cool and memories to fade. Apart from the main actors, many others in a position to validate or refute whatever he might say in his book are deceased. In fact, the majority of the current generation of Nigerians were not even born when he left power in 1993. In a nutshell, while Babangida’s autobiography may attempt to rationalise many of his decisions, the scars left by the events he oversaw, such as the Structural Adjustment Programme, state executions, public corruption, and the endless and wasteful transition programme, will remain fresh in the country’s memory.
In Nigeria, what have these autobiographies taught us? Many leaders and political figures have left behind terrible legacies that they cannot afford to entrust to impartial storytellers. While they ought to spend the remainder of their lives in regret and reflection, they prefer to add salt to the wound by publishing half-truths and falsehoods as autobiographies. When they do this, they invariably have other elitist co-conspirators, who benefited from their actions and inactions in power, gathering to celebrate them as heroes.
As a former Nigerian leader, as long as you are alive and influential, you can always find a way to redeem your image despite your atrocities. I often ask people to imagine if General Sani Abacha were still alive; who would dare to recover any foreign loot associated with him? Who doesn’t have skeletons in their cupboards? Unfortunately for Abacha, apart from being dead, he had also stepped on most, if not all, of the toes that would have protected him, and again, one of the most affected became President just 11 months after his death.
Not everyone is the same. There are patriotic Nigerian leaders, statesmen, and freedom fighters who deserve to write autobiographies. Unfortunately, when they do, their works often get drowned in the ocean of the more negative ones who are wealthier and more popular. By tradition, Nigerians tend to promote and accept things that are popular and glamorous rather than those that are truthful and sincere. This is why you don’t hear trending biographies about Gani Fawehinmi, Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, and others.
Ultimately, everyone has the right to their own opinion and narrative of events as they wish others to perceive them. While autobiographies offer valuable insights into the minds of world leaders, they should be read critically. Readers must recognise that these books are not always honest reflections of history but are often carefully crafted narratives aimed at preserving a leader’s legacy.
The memoirs of political leaders frequently function more as instruments of image control than as genuine historical accounts. The ultimate judgement of political leaders should not lie within the pages of their autobiographies but rather in the lived experiences of their citizens and the tangible impacts of their policies.
I read three autobiographies recently, and I found them to be outstanding and honest: Sir Ahmadu Bello’s My Life, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom and Mahatma Gandhi’s The Stories of My Experiments with Truths. Sardauna’s was simple, least self-glorifying and occasionally self-critical. Mandela’s was strictly a chronicle of collective struggles, only mentioning but leaving out details about subjective issues and cleverly terminating his story to the point he was inaugurated as President. He left the story of his presidency to be told by others. Gandhi’s was the best; when he was literally forced to write his memoirs in 1925, he named it ‘My Experiments’; the translators added the word ‘autobiography’. He never wanted to write because he believed that if your actions were right, there was nothing to boast about; for the wrong ones, there would always be many people to help you write them.
Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez