The family of late Maj-General Mamman Vatsa yesterday criticised ex-Military President, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s book: ‘A Journey in Service: An Autobiography’, labelling it “a collection of distorted facts” and “a good reference material for criminals”.
Then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Vatsa, was executed on March 5, 1986, by the IBB government after a military tribunal convicted him for treason associated with an abortive coup. Vatsa, a poet, was IBB’s childhood friend.
Addressing a news conference in Minna, Niger State, spokesman for the family Jonathan Vatsa disputed IBB’s claim that his cousin’s killing was justified because of the evidence implicating him in a coup. He said: “IBB is still troubling the dead man and his entire family. Well people have seen the end of our brother, but Babangida doesn’t know how he will end.
“Our joy is that the reactions of Nigerians after the so-called book presentation shows that the killing of late General Vatsa was done out of envy, malice and hatred.”
The former Niger State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism also accused the exdictator of lying about the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential poll.
He insisted that it was not General Sani Abacha that annulled the election won by the late Chief MKO Abiola, but IBB. Jonathan said: “Gen. Babangida is a man that has lost in the affairs of honour over the many lies contained in his belated autobiography book. “Babangida’s book is a bunch of lies and blackmail.
“It’s a collection of distorted facts that cannot be a reference book for young and upcoming generations but rather for criminals.” He added: “It is a collection of distorted facts called a book and written by a man without identity. “Ordinarily, our family wouldn’t have taken issue with a man who changed his true identity just to belong to a certain ethnic group in the country.
“Well, since Babangida has refused to allow the late Gen. Vatsa to rest in peace after killing him, we will let him know that even in death, the late Gen. Vatsa is a more honourable man because he has an identity, he had a family and came from a particular village with a tribe.”
The ex-Niger All Progressives Congress (APC) spokesman questioned IBB’s identity, citing his admission of changing his surname from Badamosi to Babangida.
He said: “Where did he get the name Badamosi from in the first place, northerners don’t bear the name Badamosi. “That name is synonymous with South West people. “A man who denied his tribe and identity is not fit to live.”
On the June 12 presidential poll annulment, the Vatsa family said Babangida’s book is evidence that he is not a genius, but rather “a lily-livered General”.
