My take on late Mamman Vatsa’s involvement in abortive coup-IBB

Former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida has said the involvement of his late friend , Mamman Vatsa in a planned coup against surprised him.

Solacebase reports that General Mamman Jiya Vatsa was on March 5^th, 1986 executed by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida (who was his childhood friend) following a military tribunal conviction for treason associated with an abortive coup.

He was poet who served as Minister of the Federal Capital Abuja, and was a member of the Supreme Military Council

Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in a recent interview with Trust TV said his childhood friendship with Mamman Vatsa made it hard for him to believe the involvement of the late poet in the abortive coup.

‘’Let me tell you something , we had a situation when the Vatsa coup was about to unfold. He, Vatsa, knew that he was being mentioned as one of the chaps and he wasn’t comfortable, so he decided to come and confront me to say that “Why did you hear this and you didn’t call me to find out from me,? Babangida said.

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According to the former military president, ‘’he wanted to put a witness so he invited General Nasko to come with him. Two of them came and he said “I want to see you”, that was what Mamman Vatsa told me, two of us and I said “Fine, let’s go to the office”. We went to the office, we sat down and Vatsa said exactly what I told you.’’

’’There were rumour that I was involved in it and I didn’t call him to talk to him about it; so I looked at him and I said” “Dan’uwa, the man you brought was also rumoured that he is one of the people but I didn’t bother to ask him or to ask you because I knew both of you; we grew up together since we were kids and why should I cast a doubt on anyone of you?

‘’Nasko was just knowing; that was the first time he was knowing his name was being flown around. I said “I trusted you. There is no way I could get to hear this to say ah, no, forget it, he is my friend, I don’t think he can do that to me” and that was how I killed that rumour at the initial stage.’’

‘’It was when the persistence of the intelligence report and happenings and so on began to show themselves, that I decided that it was no longer a joke and I felt a bit bad because I trusted him a lot and to find myself now confronted with this situation, it really shocked me and there is nothing I could do but to allow the process to continue and that was what happened.’’