Attempts are being made to re-open the case of Major Gen. Mamman Vatsa, in response to his wife, Sufiya's petition asking the government to review the alleged murder of her husband in an illusive coup by former dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, even as Vatsa's family plans to wage a political campaign against Babangida.
The late Major Gen. Mamman Vatsa was executed in 1986 in questionable circumstances for alleged coup plotting during Babangida’s regime.
Competent sources told Sunday Punch that the recent petition by Vatsa’s wife, Sufiya, on the matter, has triggered a flurry of activities aimed at achieving what the family described as “justice” and not “vengeance.”It was reliably learnt that President Olusegun Obasanjo has begun rounds of meeting with members of the family over the petition, in which the family is asking him to assist them in getting redress.
Jonathan, the younger brother of the slain former minister of the Federal Capital Territory [FCT], has also vowed to launch a nationwide campaign against the political ambition of the former leader as from the first week of August.
He has formed an organisation called the National Democratic Forum [NDF], which plans to commence the mobilisation of Nigerians against Babangida’s bid for the presidency.
Details of the discussion between the president and members of the family were still sketchy , as competent sources privy to the meeting, who spoke to Sunday Punch, on the basis of anonymity, declined to give further details for what they called “ strategic reasons.”
The source only added that both parties to the discussions agreed to classify as top secrets, the meeting and its decisions because “things are still at an exploratory stage.”
It was gathered that they resolved not to divulge details of their discussion now so as not to jeorpadise further meetings on the petition, in which the Vatsa family was demanding a review of the case.
Sources added that the authorities are being tactical in handling the issue so as not to create the impression that the government was trying to use the aggrieved family to run down any perceived political opponent.
The top-level consultation is, nonetheless, coming amidst the frenzied moves by the former military president and his loyalists to place him in good stead for the 2007 presidential race.
Last Wednesday, the spokesman for Babangida Presidential Campaign Organisation, Mr. Venatus Nkem, announced the appointment of contact committees for the six geo-political zones in the country.
Vatsa, a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory [FCT], was among the seven military officers that were executed in the 1986 coup by the Babangida regime.
Last month, his widow, Sufiya, wrote the petition to Obasanjo, pleading with the president to prosecute Babangida for allegedly murdering her husband.
In the petition, dated June 15, 2006, she claimed that her husband was killed for an offence he did not commit, alleging that the then Minister of Defence, Lt. Gen. Domkat Bali, confirmed her position in an interview he granted a news magazine recently.
Part of her letter read, “Although there was no iota of evidence linking my husband to the phantom coup, he was convicted and sentenced to death by the Supreme Military Tribunal, which purportedly tried him and other coup suspects.
A special military tribunal commenced the trial of 17 officers, including Vatsa, on Monday, January 27,1986, at the Brigade of Guards Headquarters in Victoria Island, Lagos.
The Minister of Defence and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff then, Major Gen. Domkat Bali, convened the tribunal, under the Treason and Other Offences (Special Military Tribunal) Decree No.1 of 1986 with reference to Section 37(2) of the Criminal Code.
The late Vatsa’s sons, Haruna and Jibril, who were contacted by our correspondent last Friday on the meeting between the family and the president, declined comments, but only agreed to shed light on the letter written by Sufiya to Obasanjo over the execution of their patriarch.
A source, who pleaded anonymity, however, confirmed the meeting. He disclosed that the parties were supposed to have met again on an earlier agreed date but that the meeting was put on hold because of some official engagements by Mr. President.
It was learnt that the parties were still determined to keep away the prying eyes of newshounds from further developments concerning official discussions on the issues raised in Sofia’s petition.
Both Haruna and Jibril, who spoke to Sunday Punch on the family’s letter to Obasanjo, premised the action on the quest for justice as well as the need to set the record straight on the execution of their father by the Babangida administration.
They reiterated Sufiya’s claim that the Babangida regime unjustly killed Vatsa over a phantom coup plot.
According to Jibril, the Bali interview where he gave an insight into the facts and circumstances surrounding the execution of Vatsa and other convicted officers 20 years ago, has gone a long way in proving that their father was innocent of any crime.
“Bali, who was the second-in-command then, in the interview, confirmed that the killing of our dad was borne out of a long-time personal hatred the then Head of State, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, nursed against our father.
“Don’t forget that the decree or the draconian law under which Vatsa and nine others were tried and executed was promulgated two weeks after their arrest. And even when they were unjustly convicted, they were hurriedly killed before the expiration of the seven days under which they can appeal, ” Jibril alleged.
He argued that if Vatsa had had any plan to stage a coup at all, he could have done so when he was a commander, not when he was busy building a befitting federal capital as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
“It is also on record that a special investigative panel constituted by the then government headed by Gen. Sani Sami, the current emir of Zuru, had earlier declared that Vatsa had no case to answer. But because Babangida was bent on killing him by all means, he hurriedly constituted a special military tribunal, headed by Major Gen. Charles Ndiomu with the set objective of finding them guilty by all means,” he further averred.
Jibril added that since Obasanjo was “once a victim of phantom coup, what we are demanding for is justice and not vengeance. We believed in the need for Vatsa and nine others’ remains to be exhumed and given a befitting burial and their names cleared and reinstated back into the military.
“We want the man to be taken to Vatsa community where his ancestors are. Babangida should tell us where he buried him so that we can give our father a befitting burial. The Vatsa community and the Gulu kingdom are anxiously waiting for the moment when the remains of their illustrious son would be released to them for a befitting burial,” he said.
He stated that both leaders were amiable friends, recalling the historic role Babangida played when Vatsa wedded their mother, Sufiya. Jibril said, “It is an irony that IBB was my father’s bestman when he got married to my mother and signed the marriage register as the best man. It is also ironic that it is the same hand that signed my mother into womanhood years later, and made us fatherless without any just cause, but over frivolous allegations borne out of personal hatred and envy”.
Haruna, the eldest son of the late General, who said he was one of the family members who saw Mamman last before his execution, disclosed that one of the coup convicts, Col. Musa Bitiyoung, allegedly confessed to him that he was tortured to implicate Vatsa.
Haruna stressed, “The history of the Abuja master plan would be incomplete without the enviable role played by Vatsa. He wrote a lot of poems on his dream of what Abuja should be. But it is very unfortunate that no street has been named after him in appreciation of his role in the construction of the Federal Capital Territory”.
He justified the need for Obasanjo’s intervention in the matter thus, “My dad was the commander of Obasanjo’s Brigade of Guard when he was a military head of state until he handed over to an elected civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. We believe it will not be out of place if the president could be magnanimous enough in granting our request in view of the circumstances surrounding the killing of our father.”
Meanwhile, the Coordinator of the National Democratic Forum [NDF], Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, has said that his group was set to mobilise the people against Babangida’s political ambition.
Jonathan, who is a younger brother to the late army general, in a separate interview with Sunday Punch, said, “The NDF is set to mobilise people against the ambition of IBB in all the geo-political zones across the country.
“We are starting from the South-South, precisely in Calabar, by the first week of August. We believe his coming back will throw Nigeria into slavery, as the nation will go into captivity if Babangida comes back.
“He is not a democrat. He annulled the freest and fairest election in the history of the nation. If what he did to Chief Moshood Abiola is done to him, how will he feel? The billions of Naira he wasted on the election, if invested in the nation’s heath sector, would have completely transformed the sector,” he observed.
Gen. Babangida could not be immediately reached for comments but one of his close confidants, who spoke to Sunday Punch on the condition of anonymity, said the allegations levelled against Babangida by the Vatsa family lacked merit.
He emphasised that the trial and conviction of all the coup suspects followed due process as spelt out under the military laws in the country at the time.
However, he said while the family has the right of expression since the nation was in a democracy, they should exercise such right with due respect to the laws of the land.
“The actions and utterances of the family of Vatsa do not in any way pose a threat to the political ambition of Babangida because he is on ground,” the source stated.
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Mrs. Remi Oyo, said she was not aware of the meeting.
