Barely three days after the public presentation of former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida’s autobiography titled “The Journey of Service” in Abuja, a relative of the late Mamman Vatsa and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State, Comrade Jonathan Vatsa has revealed why former President Mohammadu Buhari decided shunned the event was because Babangida denied him access to bid farewell to his late mother.
Vatsa while disclosing that he is not surprised at Buhari’s snub, said that the former president is yet to let go of the 1985 coup by the Babangida which removed him from office.
While speaking to newsmen in Minna on Saturday on why he will not be in a hurry to comment on the book because he has read it, Vatsa who was former Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism pointed out that it would have been the 9th Wonders of the world if former President Muhammadu Buhari attended the book launch.
Vatsa alleged that the memory of the “mother of all betrayal” and his subsequent detention by General Babangida, denying him the lifetime opportunity to bid his late mother farewell after her death was yet to leave him.
He however said that he has been vindicated by Buhari’s action when he (Vatsa) told the whole world that former president Buhari neglected Niger state during the eight years of his administration despite the overwhelming votes given to him during his first and second term in office.
According to him, “the whole world knows that Niger state was made a scapegoat by former President Buhari because of General Babangida.
For eight years he did not pay any serious official visit to the state and no single federal project was executed in the state.
“The Baro port project which recently generated some political heat in the state was abandoned by Buhari, including all the federal road projects across the state.
“The people of the state were made to pay for the sin they knew nothing about. It was the case of when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. He side-lined the state just because of the sin of one person”.
When asked to comment on the book that has continued to generate reactions across the country, the former Publicity Secretary of the APC in the state said that he would comment on the book after digesting all the contents, stressing that “there are things that I am expecting from the book, so you people should wait until I read it, I will invite all of you when I am ready to comment on the book”, he declared.
It should be noted that the book launch had in attendance, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, former Military Heads of state, Yakubu Gowon and Abdulsalami Abubakar, former President of Ghana Akufo-Ado, former Sierra-Loan President Ernest Koroma, former Vice Presidents, Atiku Abubakar, Yemi Osibanjo, Namadi Sambo, Traditional rulers among other personalities, including states governors.
