General Ibrahim Babangida, ex-military president, has revealed more disturbing details about the coup orchestrated by his childhood friend, General Mamman Jiya Vatsa, to oust him. In his new book, Babangida said Vatsa paid N50,000 to Lt-Col. Musa Bitiyong, as motivation to help facilitate the coup. He said both Bitiyong and Vatsa admitted to it during investigation.

According to Babangida, Vatsa had  initially claimed that the payment was to help Bitiyong

establish a farm project.

Babangida wrote: WHAT HAS COME to be known as the Vatsa Coup occurred within

the first few months of the administration. It began life first as a series

of rumours. I heard through multiple sources that my childhood

friend and long-time colleague, General Mamman Jiya Vatsa, was

planning to topple our young administration in a coup. At first, I

dismissed it as the handiwork of people who were envious of the

cordial relationship between Vatsa and me over the years.

I knew, for instance, that many intermediate and senior officers

were unhappy that I appointed Gen. Vatsa as Minister of the Federal

Capital Territory even though he was not part of the change of

government that ousted General Buhari. Yet I remained true to

our friendship and bent backwards to accommodate his excesses

and boisterousness. Among some of our colleagues and the public,

Vatsa became known as the Emperor of Abuja because of his robust

boisterousness and love of drama. I admired his passion for poetry

and fraternity with the Association of Nigerian Authors.

Rumours about the impending coup reached me through military

intelligence and some officers close to Vatsa. Many were cautionary

advice: ‘Sir, be careful with your friend,’ as many informants did not

want to be quoted or to come between us as friends.

I dismissed them at first as mere rumours. Ours is a society

in which the power of rumour can overwhelm the reality of facts.

Because rumours about happenings in high places tend to be

attractive to a mass audience, they tend to gain ground quickly and

acquire a life of their own. Unless confronted with the power of

facts based on thorough investigation, these rumours repeated and

passed around the country tend to become alternative facts. They

could have a destructive effect on public sensitivity and perceptions.

With our experience in the few months in government and the

benefit of hindsight based on previous rumours, I determined that

the best way to tackle the rumours about a possible Vatsa coup was

by confronting the principal suspects.

Therefore, when the decibel of the stories rose too high, I

confronted Vatsa himself after reporting the rumours to more senior

colleagues like Generals Nasko, Garba Duba and Wushishi. Nasko

intervened and tried to find out the truth from Vatsa. Vatsa flatly

denied it all, but the covert investigations by the military and other

intelligence services continued.

Once substantial incontrovertible evidence was established,

the arrests began. It turned out that Vatsa had paid several officers

money to facilitate the coup operation. One of them was Lt-Col.

Musa Bitiyong, who was given ₦50,000. He admitted it, and Vatsa

also admitted the payment but said he wanted to help Bitiyong

establish a farm project — the case of Lt-Col. Musa was not helped

because he had previously been involved in other controversial coup

stories.

When the coup was first uncovered, I did not quite believe the

extent of Vatsa’s involvement. Even worse were the details of the

dastardly plans, including plans to bomb the Eko Bridge in Lagos

and possibly hijack the presidential jet to eliminate the President.

As the details kept coming in, it became harder not to believe the

integrity of the disclosures. I felt a deep personal sense of betrayal.

There were details of conversations, funding, travel itinerary and

recruitment of troops to support the operation. Each time I had to

be briefed on aspects of the coup plot, I insisted on having a senior

officer with integrity present as a witness. I invited Garba Duba to

listen in on one occasion as the investigating team briefed me. When

I shrugged in disbelief, the briefing officer then revealed that Vatsa

had even tried to escape through the wall air conditioner hole in his

detention room but was stopped by vigilant guards.

I had reasons to be shocked at Vatsa’s role, but I was not

surprised. We were very close friends. We had grown up together

in Minna and had been classmates in Bida. We did several things

together as peers. My wife recalled that we used to share a room

as bachelors. We would reach out for whatever shirt was available,

irrespective of whose it was, and just wear it and head out! We were

that close.

With the benefit of hindsight now, I recall that a constant part

of our relationship as teenagers and young men was a continuous

and recurrent peer jealousy on his part towards me. He was always

envious of my achievements, especially when he thought I was

progressing better than him, either in school or our military career

path. For instance, when I became Head Boy at Bida Secondary

School, Vatsa often made it a duty to put obstacles in my way as

a leader. He frequently disregarded my instructions, insisting that

there was nothing so special about being the Head Boy. That trend

continued through our military career but tended to diminish as

we both progressed in our respective military careers. Still, he was

envious of my career path and postings up to when I was chosen as

a member of the Supreme Military Council under General Murtala

Muhammed.

The investigations revealed the sordid details of the coup

plan. There was a plan, for instance, to bomb strategic bridges in

Lagos to cut off the Mainland from the Island and obstruct troop

reinforcement from the Ikeja Cantonment to Bonny Camp on the

Island. There were also plans to sabotage the air assets of the Air

Force using the Makurdi air base. Other aspects included a plan to

hijack or shoot down the president’s aircraft using air force combat

aircraft. The multi-dimensional nature of the plan accounts for the

heavy involvement of officers from the Air Force in the plans.

Once the investigations were concluded and the panel reached

its verdict, it was clear that the coup planners had to be executed. An

allowance was made for appeals to the tribunal. Accordingly, those

with only tangential involvement had their sentences commuted to

life or other jail terms. There was no room to commute the sentences

for Vatsa and the other core planners. Being intermediate and

senior military officers, they were fully aware of the consequences

of planning a coup and failing. That is one of the most elementary

lessons every military officer knows by heart.

Vatsa and his nine other co-conspirators were executed in

March 1986. They had planned a bloody coup which would have

plunged the country into darkness. I had to choose between saving

a friend’s life and the nation’s future. Above all, everyone who had

signed on to a military career understood clearly what it meant to

plan a coup and fail. The penalty was clear and unmistakable.

Of course, Vatsa’s death was a personal loss of a childhood friend.

As a human being, I was somewhat depressed to watch him die in

such circumstances. However, the nation’s stability and the cohesion

of the armed forces were too high on the scale of priorities to be

sacrificed for personal considerations. The law and the imperatives

of order and national security are overriding.

Given my closeness to General Vatsa and the political

interpretations that emerged about his coup plot after his trial and

execution, it is not surprising that agents of subsequent political

dispensations tried to weaponise the Vatsa coup as a political tool

against us in the post-1999 political ploys. Unfortunately, some

members of the Vatsa family lent their voices and presence to these

ploys, which fizzled out in due course.