If a rap singer would talk about her, he would simply say: she is da bomb! Mrs. Safiya Vatsa, widow, 20 years in calmness, then suddenly on fire against one of the most ruthless dicators in Africa. For two decades she kept mum over the loss of her spouse, suffering in silence as the powerful military elite held sway. She was smart, that woman. Mrs. Vatsa knew that as long as the cabal that killed her husband held power, she had no one to rescue her. So she waited and waited. Until now.
Perhaps the biggest trouble starring the former dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida, in the face today is the bold assertions of Mrs. Vatsa, who is seriously bidding to bring down the House of Babangida for the alleged murder of her husband, the late General Mamman Vatsa, in a made-up coup.
The fuel to Mrs. Vatsa's fire was provided by General Domkat Bali when he said mid-year that he could no longer sleep comfortably over the killing of soldiers in the coup that solidified Babangida's government. Since then, she had received a rare energy and fired up those against the political and economic establishment called Babangida.
First, Vatsa's widow sought audience with President Olusegun Obasanjo, handing over a list of demands, on top of which is the re-opening of the case file through which her husband was convicted of coup plotting in 1986. She also wanted Babangida's role to be investigated, while asking that her husband's remains be released to the family for a befitting burial. Other than IBB, she requested that properties taken from her family and personally repossessed by the later General Sani Abacha be returned.
Since meeting with Obasanjo, Mrs. Vatsa's fight had taken a very serious dimension, as she surrounded herself with all kinds of pressure groups and radicals, while declaring that she possessed documents that would fix Babangida for good. Among the materials she had her those that would proof the following:
- * Babangida was involved in the Bukar Sukar Dimka coup in which General Murtala Mohammed was killed.
- * Babangida did drugs.
- * Babangida made up all the facts that led to the conviction of her husband because Vatsa knew too much about Babangida.
What is going on must be serious enough to threaten IBB not only in his presidential ambition but also in his life as a private citizen. First choosing to keep quiet, Babangida later went public, calling newsmen, whom he had ignored a few days before at his birthday, apparently to preempt Mrs. Vatsa.
In his own explanations, IBB claimed that there was a coup, and he did not have any regrets for killing the best man at his own wedding.
According to him, he has got the report of the military panel that tried Vatsa and 12 others for their alleged involvement in the botched coup of December 1985. “The report was in six volumes, I asked for them, read them and I discovered that I didn’t do what I was accused of doing,” Babangida declared.
He continued, “I was satisfied that we did not do anything out of malice or hatred.” The former military president said when the trial of Vatsa and others was going on, the then first lady, Mrs. Maryam Babangida, sent a note to him as head of state asking him to intervene on the part of Vatsa since, as she put it, they were from the same state."
But his comment of having no regret has infuriated Mrs. Vatsa the more. "IBB (Babangida) said he has no regrets. I don’t blame him for not having regret for taking a human life, because nobody knows his trace in this country. That is what we that are living today want to know. Where does he come from and where does he go to?
She said she has her own copies of the coup proceedings. "I have the documents from the beginning of the alleged coup to the last sitting of the military tribunal. Parts of them are with me; some are in Europe in the archives. We will deliver them at any time they want them in Nigeria. They are available."
Vatsa's widow described Babangida as a man without conscience and his presidential ambition as a huge joke. "Is he really coming for the Presidency? He is just a joker. You know the man is a Maradona. He wants to play ball but he has forgotten that Maradona does not score goals again."
Some Babangida loyalists have claimed that Mrs. Vatsa is being used by the Obasanjo administration to drum up support with a view to stopping the presidential ambition of IBB.
Senator Joseph Waku, an associate of ex-president, Ibrahim Babangida whose regime executed Vatsa alongside 12 others, accused the Obasanjo government of being the mastermind of the controversy.
A pro-IBB group, The Nigerian Project (TNP), wrote that Mrs. Vatsa "had been misled into doing what she never wanted to do." It said it is shocking to see her fight Babangida. "Shocking that she may have collected gratification or a promise of some sort. Shocking also, that as a wife of a former military general, she is supposed to understand the theory and pragmatism of administrative political-military hustle take over of power and its attainment."
In another response from the same camp, IBB's intellectual supervisor, Prof. Omo Omoruyi, suggested that IBB’s hands were tied. According to him, the dictator had commissioned him to draft a national broadcast commuting the death sentence on Vatsa to imprisonment. Omoruyi was trying to convey the impression that IBB was only coerced by the military “cabal” to approve the killing of his bosom friend, just like they also tied his hands into annulling June 12 election.
They are trying to dance all kinds of styles, but whichever steps they make, it seems Babangida is in real trouble this time.
Againstbabangida spoke to journalists on the ground, who had daily contacts with Mrs. Vatsa, and the feeback we got was that she was very fired and focused, but waiting patiently for the right time to strike back at IBB.
She knows when to attack and recoil. Immediately she talked to journalists in reply to IBB, she withdrew, refusing to speak to anybody, while claiming she had all the weapons to turn Babangida's best dreams into his worst nightmare.
Safiya is sending fears down the spine of not only Babangida's household but his thousands of hangers-on, who dread the loss of wages expected from his presidential run.
That is why they are accusing President Obasanjo of flaming the fire, while doing everything they can to blackmail the administration into dropping the case. Nonetheless, the more they fight, the bigger the fire grows. The coup files, reports indicate, have now been turned to the Ministry of Justice to investigate.
These are not the best of times for Ibrahim Babangida. His deeds of 20 years and more are coming back to haunt him. His worst nightmare has descended upon him. And that nightmare is a little widow called Safiya.
