There is panic in the camp of former military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, over the agitation by the family of the late Major. Gen. Mamman Vatsa to make President Olusegun Obasanjo revisit the execution of Vatsa over the 1986 coup. Babangida now mounts pressure on Vatsa's widow, Sufiya, to abandon her restitution cause.
The evil genius is among some senior military offices who have indicated interest in the presidency for 2007 under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Vatsa, then the Commander of the elite force, Brigade of Guards, was executed by the Babangida regime after his conviction by a military tribunal that tried some military officers over the 1986 coup plot. He was also the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Sources said on Friday that most leaders of the presidential campaign machinery of Babangida had become jittery following the recent meeting between Obasanjo and representatives of the family, led by the widow.
A letter, which Sufiya sent to the president, in which she pleaded with The Presidency to revisit the case of her husband, necessitated the meeting.
She claimed that her husband was innocent of the offence for which he was tried, convicted and eventually executed, citing a recent view expressed by a top military brass then, Lt. Gen. Domkat Bali (rtd), to corroborate her assertion.
A source stated that the president told the Vatsa family to give the Federal Government enough time to study the letter before taking a position on the matter.
Babangidas campaigners, however, were apprehensive that the current cause of the Vatsa family poses a serious danger to his political ambition to lead the country again.
It was gathered that many IBB loyalists had made direct telephone calls to the family members or through their cronies to prevail on the family not to press ahead with the case raised in the letter sent to The Presidency.
There has been serious concern on the likely negative effects of the cause they have embarked upon on the ambition of the former military president. So, they are piling a lot of pressure on the family to have a rethink on the matter, a source said.
Some of them were said to be close associates of Vatsa while he was alive but had to shift their loyalty to Babangida shortly after he (Vatsa) was executed over the coup plot.
A member of the family and younger brother of the late FCT minister, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, in an interview with our correspondent in Minna, the Niger State capital, on Thursday, confirmed the overtures from the IBB camp urging the family to withdraw its petition to The Presidency.
Since the visit of our representatives to the Presidential Villa, there has been so much pressure on the family members, most especially the widow, to have a rethink on the letter. Some of those urging her to do so had not called her since the last 20 years.
They included people who were close family friends but who later switched over to IBB after the execution of our breadwinner. They have been calling and telling her to forget the issue.
What the family is doing today is to set the record straight. The family is not calling for Babangidas head, as we are leaving vengeance to God. But our position is that if the killing was unjustly done, as Gen. Domkat Bali had buttressed in a recent interview, the family deems it fit to urge the Federal Government to reinstate Vatsas name back to the Army and get his body exhumed for a proper burial.
We want all his entitlements paid to the family and all the honours, such as the customary 21-gun salute, to be given when the body is taken for burial. This is our request so that the children and other family members can raise their heads, that their father or kinsman was not a criminal but was only killed because somebody was not just comfortable with him.
He condemned the insinuations in some quarters that Babangidas political opponents were using the family members over the matter to frustrate his presidential ambition.
He described such insinuations as mischievous, saying that those behind it were speaking out of ignorance.
The political jobbers around Babangida should know that it is neither me in the Turaki Vanguard nor any political opponent that is pushing the family on this critical matter. The widow is there and you cannot say that the woman does not know the value of a husband or that the children do not know the value of a father?
People should just stop being mischievous. It was not the family that made Domkat Bali to speak out. We should remember that any innocent blood shed will continue to cry for justice, and no wonder that, during his last statement after he was convicted, Vatsa had said, This sentence shall not be my last hour on earth. I have Gods promise on that. His promise on innocent blood is that they will continue to cry for justice. People should stop dragging politics into the issue as this is not a political issue at all.
Speaking on the 2007 elections, Vatsa stated that the nation needs a leader who has the interest of the masses at heart, adding, We do not need a Maradona to lead us. We need a democrat with the interest of the masses; one who will be able to build on the achievement of the present regime.
One of the sons of Vatsa, Jibril, who also spoke to our reporter, confirmed the pressure from certain quarters on the family to withdraw its petition.
He also denied the rumour that the family was working for Babangidas political opponents.
It will forever remain a pain in my heart to remember that Babangida was my fathers bestman when he got married to my mother and signed the marriage register as the best man. It is also painful and ironic that it is the same hand that signed my mother into womanhood which years later, signed her into widowhood and made us fatherless without no just cause but just for frivolous allegations borne out of personal hatred and envy, Jibril restated.
Contacted by Sunday Punch on why Babangidas supporters were putting pressure on the family, one of the arrowheads of his presidential campaign, Mallam Salman Yusuf, described the call for the revisit of Vatsas execution as a move by political opponents of the former head of state to score cheap political point.
Yusu, who is also the state Niger Chairman of the National Democratic Party [NDP], asserted that the entire members of the then Armed Forces Ruling Council [AFRC], in 1986, approved the execution of Vatsa after he and other coup suspects were convicted by a military tribunal.
It is rather unfortunate that Lt. Gen. Domkat Bali is making this kind of statement after over 20 years ago when the action was taken. Thank God that every Nigerian knows about what transpired then. It was strictly a military affair and the proceedings of the trial that finally led to the decision was made public for people to observe, he stated.
He claimed that the children of both Vatsa and Babangida, till today, remained bosom friends, alleging that some political opponents of Babangida were the masterminds of the raging controversy over the 1986 coup.
He argued that the action would not have any negative impact on the ambition of Babangida to contest and win the presidential race in 2007.
