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All attempts by Sufiya to see her husband were frustrated by the military authorities. It was only Fatima’s trick that worked a bit. Posing as a lawyer, she would follow other counsels into Vatsa’s detention centre and trial venue. Vatsa, however, sent Sufiya a note from Kirikiri, saying: “Do not beg Babangida. He is after my life. Take care of the children. I know it is not easy but God will help you.”
When he was to be executed, Vatsa requested that his wrist watch and wedding ring be given to Sufiya. “But by the time they brought the watch and the wedding ring, the ring wasn’t my wedding ring, so I rejected it. “Till today, they have not returned the ring to me,” Sufiya was quoted by a family source.

Sufiya was, therefore, left in the cold, without any wealth to fall back on. Vatsa had only one plot of land in Abuja, but it was taken over by the late despot, General Sani Abacha. At a point, Sufiya approached General Jeremiah Useni, one-time Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, in a bid to reclaim the land. Useni called for the file and told Vatsa’s wife to pay for the land rent. She, however, complained to Useni: “When my husband was a minister in FCT, he refused to allocate land to me, his wife. He said it would be immoral for him to give me land. He said his successor would give me.” Useni looked the other way while Sufiya and her family were deprived of the land.

Not all of Vatsa’s friends abandoned the family, however. “One of his friends came to our aid.” Sufiya once said. “Every other person that was dining and wining with my husband immediately switched over to IBB. Even my children today are not identified with.”
To keep body, soul and the family together, Sufiya, of Efik descent, would travel to Calabar, in Cross River State, and bring food from her people to take care of her children in Kaduna where she has vowed to remain. Apart from buying and selling, Sufiya used to engage in poultry and cattle rearing. In fact, she injected life into her Sava Farm, which she set up in 1971 after the civil war. But robbers ruined the business.
Sufiya believed her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was executed. She once lamented to her husband’s family:” It is painful that my husband was executed as a coup plotter even when he was not. And till this moment, we don’t know where he was buried. That Gen. Domkat Bali interview published in TheNews magazine is one of the good things God has done to us in the Vatsa family. Before, some people did not believe that Vatsa was not a coup plotter; but Bali’s confession explained it all. They should release the corpse of my husband to me so that he can be given a befitting burial. That is my prayer.”
It was for this reason that Sufiya wrote a letter, dated 15 June 2006, to President Olusegun Obasanjo, where she stated: “Although there was no iota of evidence linking my husband with the phantom coup, he was convicted and sentenced to death by the Special Military Tribunal which purportedly tried him and other coup suspects. My husband’s appeal to the Armed Forces Ruling Council against his illegal conviction was yet to be considered when the Head of State, General Babangida had him secretly executed along with the other coup convicts.”
She claimed in the letter that Bali confirmed her husband’s innocence in TheNEWS’ interview when he said: ‘“My regret is that up till now, I am not sure whether Vatsa ought to have been killed because whatever evidence they amassed against him was weak. My only regret is that I could not say, don’t do it. I am not so sure whether we were right to have killed Vatsa.” Sufiya, therefore, requested the Obasanjo administration to prosecute General Babangida for “the murder of my husband, General Vatsa.”
Born on 3 December 1940, Major General Mamman Vatsa attended the Government Secondary School, Bida, Niger State. He enlisted in the Nigerian Army on 10 December 1962 and was trained at the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna and the India Military Academy. Vatsa was in charge of the 21 Battalion during the Nigerian Civil War, after which he became an instructor at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. Apart from his position as Principal Staff Officer at Army Headquarters, he commanded the 30 infantry Brigade (Ogoja) until July 1975. As the Commander of the Brigade of Guards, a post he held until 1979, Vatsa oversaw the movement of its headquarters from Dodan Barracks to Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.
One proof of his loyalty to his Commander-in-Chief was when, as Commander, Brigade of Guards, Calabar, he was the first to go on air to kick against the 13 February 1976 coup, led by Lt. Col Buka Dimka. During the trial of suspects involved in that coup, he was the Tribunal Secretary. Thereafter, he was appointed the Commander, Brigade of Guards under General Olusegun Obasanjo. Mrs. Vatsa once revealed: “My husband drove General Obasanjo to his Ota farm after he handed over power to the civilians in 1979.”
As Nowa Omoigui wrote, Vatsa was Commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI) from 1979. “He, along with Lt. Col Bitiyong, developed the Special Warfare Wing and established the doctrinal basis for the establishment of the 82nd Composite Division of the Nigerian Army in Enugu. In fact, it was Vatsa who suggested that the Division be called the “82nd Division” – after the 82nd West African Division, Burma.”
As an accomplished poet and writer, Vatsa was able to publish eight poetry collections for adults and 11 for younger ones. Some of his book titles are Back Again At Watergate (1982), Reach For The Skies (1984), and Verses for Nigerian State Capitals (1973). His pidgin poetry collection is Tori for Geti Bow Leg (1981). His pictorial books are Bikin Suna and Stinger the Scorpion.
His literary interests transcended merely reeling out volumes of verse. He organized writing workshops for soldiers and their families, assisted the Children’s Literature Association with funds, as well as allocating a piece of land in Abuja for a writers village for the Association of Nigerian Authors. Vatsa was so pre-occupied with creativity that he always carried jotters to the toilet, dining table and the bedroom. There were books strewn around in the family’s apartment so much that, Sufiya once threatened to “throw these books out.”
Vatsa’s journey to the great beyond started on 17 December 1985 when the military authorities arrested over 100 officers from the Army, Navy and the Air Force. Vatsa was picked up seven days later. They were, for two weeks, investigated by the Brigadier-General Sani Sami-led Preliminary Special Investigation Panel. After this, 17 of them were dragged before a Special Military Tribunal, set up by Bali, at the Defence Minister, at the Brigade of Guards Headquarters, Lagos. The accused officers were Lt.-Cols. Musa Bitiyong, Christian A. Oche, Micheal A Iyorshe, M. Effiong; Majors D.I Bamidele, D.E. West, J.O Onyeke and Tobias G Akwashiki. Others were Captain G.I L Sese, Lt. K.G. Dakpa, Commodore A.A. Ogwiji, Wing Commanders B.E. Ekele, Adamu Sakaba; Squadron Leaders Martin Luther, C. Ode and A Ahura.
The tribunal, chaired by Major General Ndiomu, tried the officers under the Treason and Other Offences (Special Military Tribunal) Decree 1 of 1986. Other members of the tribunal were Brigadier Yerima Yohanna Kure, Commodore Murtala Nyako, Col. Rufus Kupolati, Col E. Opaleye, and Lt. Col. D. Muhammed. Alhaji Mamman Nassarawa, a commissioner of police and Major A Kejawa, the Judge Advocate, were also members. The IBB regime accused Vatsa of trying to overthrow it by hiding behind a farming loan to Lt-Col Bitiyong, a charge which the general denied.
As Nowa Omogui, a military analyst explains in his essay, The Vatsa Conspiracy, Bitiyong was allegedly tortured to implicate Vatsa “by making reference to certain private political conversations they had, which Vatsa denied.”
There were further allegations that Luther, Oche, Ogwiji and Bitiyong held a meeting at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel and Towers in November 1985. Iyorchie, Bitiyong, Oche, Ekele, Sakaba and Bamidele also allegedly met in Makurdi. Allegations such as the diversion of the presidential jet to a pre-arranged location by pilots in the executive fleet (Luther and Ahura), as Omogui put it, were floated. Oche allegedly held a meeting with Major Akwashiki, Commander of the 6th Battalion, Bonny Camp, and Onyeke, after a game of squash in Lagos and spoke about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. Akwashiki was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment. He was however released 10 years later by the Abacha regime.
Oche, it was also alleged, mentioned the plot to his nephew, Peter Odoba, a young lieutenant of the Brigade of Guards who, as Omogui wrote, informed then Lt. Hamza al-Mustapha, an intelligence officer to the Chief of Army Staff. Obada was charged with “concealment, recommended for dismissal and a long jail term.”
On 6 March 1986, however, Vatsa, Iyorshe, Bamidele, Ogwiji, Ekele, Sakaba, Luther, Akura were executed.Vatsa had taken his trial and sentence with cheerful equanimity like the writer that he was. His vintage smiles revealed more than his words. “I leave you with smiles as smiles surprise people. But I will tell members of the Nigerian Army that the day you start insulting yourselves, others begin to join you,” he said.

To buttress his position that there was rivalry between IBB and Vatsa, Omogui referred to an interview that Eniola Bello of THISDAY had with IBB in 2001 when he turned 60. ‘“Babangida said it was after Vatsa’s coup was foiled that he realized his childhood friend and classmate planned the coup in line with a deep-seated personal rivalry, going back to their days as young officers. He said that unconsciously, he and Vatsa had been great competitors; that as a young officer, whatever he did Vatsa equally did and whatever Vatsa achieved, he also went after. He said it was Lt. Gen. T.Y. Danjuma who pointed this out to him from their military records.” Babangida gave this rationalization to justify his refusal to pardon Vatsa. He said when he first heard his childhood friend was planning a coup, he decided to do nothing but monitor him. He added, however, that Vatsa came to him to complain thus: You heard I was planning a coup and couldn’t even ask me. What kind of friend are you? To this, Babangida said he replied: I didn’t believe it, or are you planning a coup? He said Vatsa replied in the negative and the matter was forgotten until there was evidence of the plot. Babangida said he instructed that Vatsa be arrested and detained to prevent him from impeding investigation into the matter.
Babangida argued: “However, Vatsa tried to escape through the air conditioner hole. I couldn’t understand why he was trying to escape if he was not involved in a coup plot. But while watching the video of his execution, I turned my eyes away when I saw him remove his watch and ask a soldier to give his wife. I couldn’t continue watching.” Babangida added that he couldn’t retire or imprison Vatsa because he believed the guy could still have planned a coup either in retirement or in prison. “Rawlings did it in Ghana and you know Vatsa was very stubborn,” IBB said.
Omogui, however, lamented the tragedy that befell Vatsa: “Vatsa maintained to the very end that the money was for farming. Others alleged, however, that after being tortured for two days, Bitiyong implicated Vatsa by making reference to certain private political conversations they had, which Vatsa denied. But Vatsa was accused of harbouring “bad blood” against his friend and classmate Babangida, dating back to the Buhari regime and possibly earlier. He was also obliquely accused of reporting Babangida’s coup plot to Buhari before he left the country for pilgrimage along with Major General Tunde Idiagbon in August, 1985. Actions he later took as a Minister to accelerate many military applications for certificates of occupancy for land in Abuja, came to be viewed as efforts to buy the support of one or two of the plotters. Rumors that a civilian had introduced him at a party as Nigeria’s next President were even aired. All of this was, of course, circumstantial. But they took him to the stake, which was quite an anti-climax to the career of a brilliant man who never took part in any coup in Nigeria. Indeed, Mamman Vatsa was the first to go on air in Calabar to denounce the Dimka coup, and was later the Secretary of the Obada panel that tried Dimka and others in 1976. This little detail may have earned him some latent enmity in certain circles of the Army which later contributed to his death.”
There is also a very strong belief that Vatsa may have been a victim of political intrigues because of his intellectual sagacity, being a writer and soldier-poet, and his significant indifference to the military politics at that time. In fact, his ordeal had attracted three leading Nigerian literary icons, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and John Pepper Clark Bekederemo, who had gone to plead with Babangida for clemency, only to be shocked by news of his execution few minutes after departing Dodan Barracks, venue of the meeting.
Hajia Sufiya Vatsa, wife of the late former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, General Mamman Vatsa, was at the forefront of the struggle to ensure that justice is done in the Vatsa case.
Her campaign was cut short in the early hours of Monday, 21 May 2007 when the grim riper came calling.
She handed over the mantle to her son Jubrin who broke the news news of her demise.
Hajia Sufiya Vatsa, widow of the late former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, General Mamman Vatsa, died aged 56, but looked older than her age. She has been through a whole lot of psychological trauma.
Hajia Safiya died in the early hours of Monday, May 21, 2007 at her residence in Kaduna after a brief illness.
Jibrin, son of the late Mrs. Vatsa, who broke the news of his mother's death to Daily Sun on telephone, said Hajia Sufiya took ill early last week and was getting better when she passed on. He said the deceased's remains were buried on Monday in her farm, according to Islamic rites.
Only recently, Hajia Vatsa petitioned President Olusegun Obasanjo demanding a review of the circumstance surrounding the execution of her husband in 1986 by the General Ibrahim Babangida military administration. President Obasanjo later had an audience with her during which she was said to have stated her case.
Until her death, Hajia Vatsa lived in her husband's farm in Kaduna. She vowed never to step foot in Minna for the rest of her life after her husband, Vatsa was executed by the military junta.
Sufiya, was both Father and Mother to her kids who she brought up on a shoe-string budget. Haruna, whom Vatsa asked to be withdrawn from the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, because of the way the Army treated him, is now married with two children. Fatima, who is a Medical Doctor, is in London with her husband, while Jubrin, who studied law, lived in Minna, Niger State until he died yesterday, September 13 in Calabar after a brief illness. Aisha the baby of the house is a US-based pilot.
Of all the Vatsas, only Jubrin lived in Minna after Sufiya relocated the family to Kaduna. He wanted to be closer to his Father who was very fond of him.
General Vatsa on page 74 in his book of Poetry REACH FOR THE SKIES has this to say about his son Jubrin:
"Jib Boy
O, Jib boy
You give me joy
You look so much like me
But what else could it be!"
Pg 74, REACH FOR THE SKIES (1985) by Gen Mamman Jiya Vatsa
Jibrin Mamman Jiya Vatsa the third child of General Mamman Jiya Vatsa and Sufiya slept in the Lord in the early hours of Sunday, September 13, 2015 after a brief illness in Calabar. Jubrin finally made the journey to Calabar which was aborted on 23rd December, 1985 when the junta led by the "Evil Genius" took away his source of joy.
Alas Father, Mother and Son reunited by the grim riper. These things are beyond anything we've seen before, and I am afraid that William Shakespeare was spot on in his epic, Julius Caesar where he posited thus:
“When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
Adios.....

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By Sunday Akoji

“When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
- William Shakespeare
On 23 December 1985, the Vatsa family had just concluded plans to travel to Calabar because, usually, they spent the yuletide in the Cross River State capital, (Sufiya is Efik), the Id-el-Fitri in Minna, Niger State (Vatsa is Nupe) and the Id-el Kabir in Kaduna. After the necessary packing for the trip, the family waited for the return of General Vatsa from the Armed Forces Ruling Council, (AFRC), meeting he had attended. He returned home late, so the trip was postponed till the following day. At about 12 midnight, while Sufiya was watching a movie in her bedroom, her husband, who was working in his study, rushed in to tell her that IBB had sent for him. The wife protested that it was too late in the night and that Vatsa should phone his boss to shift the meeting to the following morning.

As this debate was going on, Lt. Col. U.K. Bello led a team of soldiers to Vatsa’s home at Rumens Street, Ikoyi, Lagos. The soldiers, who came with armored vehicles and military vans, surrounded the house. Vatsa told his wife who was upstairs to peep through the window. Unable to contain her fear, she rushed downstairs and insisted that if the soldiers would take away her husband, then she had to follow them. Sufiya insisted on driving Vatsa in her own Pengeot 404. At this point, Vatsa directed that the children be woken up, and he kissed them one after the other. Haruna, the first son, who was in the Nigeria Military School, Zaria, followed them downstairs, weeping. While UK Bello drove in the fore of the convoy, Sufiya and Vatsa were chauffeur-driven in their own car in what later turned out to be a merry-go-round about Lagos till about 2 a.m when they stopped at 7 Cameron Road, Ikoyi. Vatsa was ordered out of the car. As he made to enter the building, Sufiya ran after him but she was rudely pulled back by the soldiers. The General turned and gave his wife a bear hug, an embrace that was their last. He urged his wife to take care of their children, Haruna, Fatima, Jibrin and Aisha.
Sufiya returned home dejected. To her shock, the military authorities had withdrawn the official domestic staff. At 5a.m, she prepared breakfast of fried yam and pawpaw, drove to her husband’s detention centre but was told she could not bring in any food.
Another surprise awaited Vatsa’s wife. A soldier came in and said: “Madam, Oga’s wife, Mrs Mariam Babangida, said I should carry General Vatsa’s telephone handset to her.” Fatima, Vatsa’s daughter, clung to the gadget. A struggle ensued between the 15-year-old girl and the soldier, whose muscles bulged like the biceps of Michaelangelo’s statues. Sufiya asked her daughter to let go of the probably bugged set.
Worse still, some gruff, fierce-looking soldiers, led by Vatsa’s former Aide-de-Camp (ADC), Captain Maku, an intelligence officer of Idoma extraction, had led other soldiers in laying siege to the family’s house. “Madam, no visitors, no phone calls, no going out,” Maku snapped as he reclined on a settee in the living room, an improvised toothpick, peeping out of a corner of his mouth. When Sufiya protested that the family needed to buy foodstuff, Maku, whose friendly disposition when he was Vatsa’s batman had changed, commanded that the woman and her children “must manage.”

After three days of captivity, Sufiya could not endure it any longer. She told Maku: “Look, I am going to the market. If you refuse me, it means between you and I, somebody will die. I will show you I am a soldier’s wife.” She took her car, and without bothering about the soldiers, who cocked their guns menacingly at her, rammed it into the gate, which gave way as the soldiers scattered capriciously in different directions. She got to Falomo, bought bread and eggs, and decided to see one of her husband’s friends, General Gado Nasko. Before the visit to Nasko, however, Sufiya had driven home and, since her daughter was, coincidentally, at the gate, had dropped the food and driven to the Naskos.
Sufiya’s mission was to ask Nasko to fix a meeting between her and IBB to find a way to settle the matter. Although soldiers at Nasko’s house gave her the cold shoulder, her persistence worked.
Nasko, who said he was aware of the problem and would try to arrange the meeting, asked Sufiya to see him in the evening. Her hope soared. The reason was the special relationship between her family and IBB’s. “When we got married,” Sufiya was reported as saying, “I thought IBB and my husband were of the same family. The two wore the same size of dress and pair of shoes. IBB would drop his dirty wears in our house and put on my husband’s. When IBB traveled out, for a further military training my husband took care of Mariam and her children. General Vatsa, apart from mounting the horse when IBB married Mariam, bought their first set of furniture from Leventis on hire purchase.
IBB was also my husband’s best man during our wedding. Whenever Maryam’s Mercedez car broke down, she used to drive my Peugeot 404. We were close.” All these, to Babangida, did not count in the field of realpolitik. Nasko told Sufiya later in the day that the military President was not ready to see her.
Another disappointment awaited Sufiya when she returned to her Rumen’s Street residence, Ikoyi. A soldier from Bonny Camp was waiting for her with an order that the family should vacate the house. Another military officer said the car should be taken to Army Headquarters for security check after which they broke into the car’s glove compartment and confiscated Vatsa’s manuscripts. In frustration, Sufiya hired a trailer and moved the family’s belongings to Kaduna. She and Fatima, however, returned and stayed in Nwakana Okoro, her brother-in-law’s house at Queen’s Drive, Ikoyi. When the military authorities bugged Okoro’s telephone, the lawyer, a Senior Advocate, of Nigeria, became jittery.

By Sunday Akoji..

When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
- William Shakespeare
On 23 December 1985, the Vatsa family had just concluded plans to travel to Calabar because, usually, they spent the yuletide in the Cross River State capital, (Sufiya is Efik), the Id-el-Fitri in Minna, Niger State (Vatsa is Nupe) and the Id-el Kabir in Kaduna. After the necessary packing for the trip, the family waited for the return of General Vatsa from the Armed Forces Ruling Council, (AFRC), meeting he had attended. He returned home late, so the trip was postponed till the following day. At about 12 midnight, while Sufiya was watching a movie in her bedroom, her husband, who was working in his study, rushed in to tell her that IBB had sent for him. The wife protested that it was too late in the night and that Vatsa should phone his boss to shift the meeting to the following morning.

As this debate was going on, Lt. Col. U.K. Bello led a team of soldiers to Vatsa’s home at Rumens Street, Ikoyi, Lagos. The soldiers, who came with armored vehicles and military vans, surrounded the house. Vatsa told his wife who was upstairs to peep through the window. Unable to contain her fear, she rushed downstairs and insisted that if the soldiers would take away her husband, then she had to follow them. Sufiya insisted on driving Vatsa in her own Pengeot 404. At this point, Vatsa directed that the children be woken up, and he kissed them one after the other. Haruna, the first son, who was in the Nigeria Military School, Zaria, followed them downstairs, weeping. While UK Bello drove in the fore of the convoy, Sufiya and Vatsa were chauffeur-driven in their own car in what later turned out to be a merry-go-round about Lagos till about 2 a.m when they stopped at 7 Cameron Road, Ikoyi. Vatsa was ordered out of the car. As he made to enter the building, Sufiya ran after him but she was rudely pulled back by the soldiers. The General turned and gave his wife a bear hug, an embrace that was their last. He urged his wife to take care of their children, Haruna, Fatima, Jibrin and Aisha.
Sufiya returned home dejected. To her shock, the military authorities had withdrawn the official domestic staff. At 5a.m, she prepared breakfast of fried yam and pawpaw, drove to her husband’s detention centre but was told she could not bring in any food.
Another surprise awaited Vatsa’s wife. A soldier came in and said: “Madam, Oga’s wife, Mrs Mariam Babangida, said I should carry General Vatsa’s telephone handset to her.” Fatima, Vatsa’s daughter, clung to the gadget. A struggle ensued between the 15-year-old girl and the soldier, whose muscles bulged like the biceps of Michaelangelo’s statues. Sufiya asked her daughter to let go of the probably bugged set.
Worse still, some gruff, fierce-looking soldiers, led by Vatsa’s former Aide-de-Camp (ADC), Captain Maku, an intelligence officer of Idoma extraction, had led other soldiers in laying siege to the family’s house. “Madam, no visitors, no phone calls, no going out,” Maku snapped as he reclined on a settee in the living room, an improvised toothpick, peeping out of a corner of his mouth. When Sufiya protested that the family needed to buy foodstuff, Maku, whose friendly disposition when he was Vatsa’s batman had changed, commanded that the woman and her children “must manage.”

After three days of captivity, Sufiya could not endure it any longer. She told Maku: “Look, I am going to the market. If you refuse me, it means between you and I, somebody will die. I will show you I am a soldier’s wife.” She took her car, and without bothering about the soldiers, who cocked their guns menacingly at her, rammed it into the gate, which gave way as the soldiers scattered capriciously in different directions. She got to Falomo, bought bread and eggs, and decided to see one of her husband’s friends, General Gado Nasko. Before the visit to Nasko, however, Sufiya had driven home and, since her daughter was, coincidentally, at the gate, had dropped the food and driven to the Naskos.
Sufiya’s mission was to ask Nasko to fix a meeting between her and IBB to find a way to settle the matter. Although soldiers at Nasko’s house gave her the cold shoulder, her persistence worked.
Nasko, who said he was aware of the problem and would try to arrange the meeting, asked Sufiya to see him in the evening. Her hope soared. The reason was the special relationship between her family and IBB’s. “When we got married,” Sufiya was reported as saying, “I thought IBB and my husband were of the same family. The two wore the same size of dress and pair of shoes. IBB would drop his dirty wears in our house and put on my husband’s. When IBB traveled out, for a further military training my husband took care of Mariam and her children. General Vatsa, apart from mounting the horse when IBB married Mariam, bought their first set of furniture from Leventis on hire purchase.
IBB was also my husband’s best man during our wedding. Whenever Maryam’s Mercedez car broke down, she used to drive my Peugeot 404. We were close.” All these, to Babangida, did not count in the field of realpolitik. Nasko told Sufiya later in the day that the military President was not ready to see her.
Another disappointment awaited Sufiya when she returned to her Rumen’s Street residence, Ikoyi. A soldier from Bonny Camp was waiting for her with an order that the family should vacate the house. Another military officer said the car should be taken to Army Headquarters for security check after which they broke into the car’s glove compartment and confiscated Vatsa’s manuscripts. In frustration, Sufiya hired a trailer and moved the family’s belongings to Kaduna. She and Fatima, however, returned and stayed in Nwakana Okoro, her brother-in-law’s house at Queen’s Drive, Ikoyi. When the military authorities bugged Okoro’s telephone, the lawyer, a Senior Advocate, of Nigeria, became jittery.

All attempts by Sufiya to see her husband were frustrated by the military authorities. It was only Fatima’s trick that worked a bit. Posing as a lawyer, she would follow other counsels into Vatsa’s detention centre and trial venue. Vatsa, however, sent Sufiya a note from Kirikiri, saying: “Do not beg Babangida. He is after my life. Take care of the children. I know it is not easy but God will help you.”
When he was to be executed, Vatsa requested that his wrist watch and wedding ring be given to Sufiya. “But by the time they brought the watch and the wedding ring, the ring wasn’t my wedding ring, so I rejected it. “Till today, they have not returned the ring to me,” Sufiya was quoted by a family source.

Sufiya was, therefore, left in the cold, without any wealth to fall back on. Vatsa had only one plot of land in Abuja, but it was taken over by the late despot, General Sani Abacha. At a point, Sufiya approached General Jeremiah Useni, one-time Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, in a bid to reclaim the land. Useni called for the file and told Vatsa’s wife to pay for the land rent. She, however, complained to Useni: “When my husband was a minister in FCT, he refused to allocate land to me, his wife. He said it would be immoral for him to give me land. He said his successor would give me.” Useni looked the other way while Sufiya and her family were deprived of the land.

Not all of Vatsa’s friends abandoned the family, however. “One of his friends came to our aid.” Sufiya once said. “Every other person that was dining and wining with my husband immediately switched over to IBB. Even my children today are not identified with.”
To keep body, soul and the family together, Sufiya, of Efik descent, would travel to Calabar, in Cross River State, and bring food from her people to take care of her children in Kaduna where she has vowed to remain. Apart from buying and selling, Sufiya used to engage in poultry and cattle rearing. In fact, she injected life into her Sava Farm, which she set up in 1971 after the civil war. But robbers ruined the business.
Sufiya believed her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was executed. She once lamented to her husband’s family:” It is painful that my husband was executed as a coup plotter even when he was not. And till this moment, we don’t know where he was buried. That Gen. Domkat Bali interview published in TheNews magazine is one of the good things God has done to us in the Vatsa family. Before, some people did not believe that Vatsa was not a coup plotter; but Bali’s confession explained it all. They should release the corpse of my husband to me so that he can be given a befitting burial. That is my prayer.”
It was for this reason that Sufiya wrote a letter, dated 15 June 2006, to President Olusegun Obasanjo, where she stated: “Although there was no iota of evidence linking my husband with the phantom coup, he was convicted and sentenced to death by the Special Military Tribunal which purportedly tried him and other coup suspects. My husband’s appeal to the Armed Forces Ruling Council against his illegal conviction was yet to be considered when the Head of State, General Babangida had him secretly executed along with the other coup convicts.”
She claimed in the letter that Bali confirmed her husband’s innocence in TheNEWS’ interview when he said: ‘“My regret is that up till now, I am not sure whether Vatsa ought to have been killed because whatever evidence they amassed against him was weak. My only regret is that I could not say, don’t do it. I am not so sure whether we were right to have killed Vatsa.” Sufiya, therefore, requested the Obasanjo administration to prosecute General Babangida for “the murder of my husband, General Vatsa.”
Born on 3 December 1940, Major General Mamman Vatsa attended the Government Secondary School, Bida, Niger State. He enlisted in the Nigerian Army on 10 December 1962 and was trained at the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna and the India Military Academy. Vatsa was in charge of the 21 Battalion during the Nigerian Civil War, after which he became an instructor at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. Apart from his position as Principal Staff Officer at Army Headquarters, he commanded the 30 infantry Brigade (Ogoja) until July 1975. As the Commander of the Brigade of Guards, a post he held until 1979, Vatsa oversaw the movement of its headquarters from Dodan Barracks to Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.
One proof of his loyalty to his Commander-in-Chief was when, as Commander, Brigade of Guards, Calabar, he was the first to go on air to kick against the 13 February 1976 coup, led by Lt. Col Buka Dimka. During the trial of suspects involved in that coup, he was the Tribunal Secretary. Thereafter, he was appointed the Commander, Brigade of Guards under General Olusegun Obasanjo. Mrs. Vatsa once revealed: “My husband drove General Obasanjo to his Ota farm after he handed over power to the civilians in 1979.”
As Nowa Omoigui wrote, Vatsa was Commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI) from 1979. “He, along with Lt. Col Bitiyong, developed the Special Warfare Wing and established the doctrinal basis for the establishment of the 82nd Composite Division of the Nigerian Army in Enugu. In fact, it was Vatsa who suggested that the Division be called the “82nd Division” – after the 82nd West African Division, Burma.”

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Kudos

The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has refused to hang the official portrait of President Muhammadu Buhari at the party’s national secretariat, checks by The PUNCH have revealed.

Over 100 days after the President assumed office, the PDP has yet to hang his portrait at any of the offices in its Wadata House national secretariat, located at Zone 5, Abuja.

The party has also said it would never put Buhari’s portraits on its walls though it has removed that of the former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who ruled on the platform of the PDP.

“We will never hang his portrait in this office, because President Buhari is not known to our party. He is not a leader of our party and therefore we will never put his portrait here. We are a political party, very partisan and therefore, we are not going to hide that,” National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, told our correspondent on the telephone on Tuesday.

Jonathan was also the presidential candidate of the former ruling party during the last general election but he was defeated by Buhari, who was the presidential candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress.

The defeat was the first to be suffered by the PDP since the return of democracy in 1999.

Before now, the party has always been hanging the portraits of all the Presidents at the party’s reception area as well as the National Executive Committee and National Working Committee halls within the secretariat.

Metuh said the APC also did not hang the portrait of Jonthan in its offices before the former President was defeated in the March 28 election.

“Can you find out if the APC had the portrait of former President Jonathan in their office before he was defeated? That is just it,” he told our correspondent.

When asked whether the party was taking its own pound of flesh, Metuh said no but that since Buhari “is not a member of our party, we won’t put his portrait here.”

The APC National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Lai Mohammed, expressed shock at Metuh’s comment.

“This is ridiculous and we have no comment. Let Nigerians judge the PDP on this matter,” Mohammed said.

He said the PDP spokesman had a shallow understanding of the concept of opposition politics.

Meanwhile, work has stopped at the new secretariat of the PDP, located in the Central Business District, Abuja.

Investigations by our correspondent indicated that contractors handling the project were only doing skeletal jobs at the site.

When our correspondent visited the site on Tuesday, there was no visible job being done at the site.

It was gathered that the cost of the project was put at N11.5bn when it was awarded some years ago. At completion, the building is expected to have 12 floors, with two other floors serving as the car park.

The party had claimed that the project was being financed from levies and contributions from members.

When a fund-raising dinner was organised a few years ago, the party was able to realise about N5bn, and the project, which started more than four years ago, was to be delivered in 126 weeks.

The former National Chairman of the party, under whose leadership the project commenced, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, had then said that the complex, when completed, would strengthen the capacity of the PDP to discharge its role effectively in Africa.

The party had claimed on January 5, 2015 that it was going to spend part of the N21.8bn it realised from the party’s fund-raising on the party’s secretariat.

A former Minister for Information and the Chairman of the party’s Fund-raising Committee, Prof. Jerry Gana, had said the money donated to the PDP was not meant for the campaign of the defeated Jonathan alone.

Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: editor@punchng.com
http://www.punchng.com/news/well-never-hang-buharis-portrait-in-our-offices-pdp/

At the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the federal government has quietly been conducting a number of appointments and promotions involving top management officials. A top source at the Corporation told the Daily Trust on Sunday last week that the exercise, which began recently after the Buhari administration assumed office, was being done to correct some identified instances of lopsidedness in appointments and promotions, harmonise industrial relations, and appropriately position the national oil regulator, with highly competent hands, to cope with the changes desired by the Buhari administration.
In the exercise done so far, the Southern zone of the country has been the greater beneficiary in the appointments and promotions. A document in possession of the Daily Trust on Sunday shows that out of the 11 appointments listed in the official gazette as approved, 10 candidates were from the South, while only one was from the North.
A breakdown of the appointments reveals that the Southeast zone produced the highest number of four candidates, while the Southsouth and Southwest produced three each. The Northwest zone produced only one, while none came from the Northeast and Northcentral.
The document also shows that 49 top management staff were promoted. Of the lot, the South produced 31, or 62.3 per cent. Broken down, the Southwest has the lion’s share of 12 senior managers, followed by the Southeast with 11. The Southsouth and Northeast boast eight each, while the Northcentral and Northwest also have five each.
There has also been a number of redeployments. A total of nine top management staff have been moved without being promoted, six of them from the North. The Northwest is mostly affected in this category with five of its indigenes redeployed.
Thirty-eight top management staff of the NNPC have been recently retired as the Corporation’s new leadership strives to cleanse its system. Twenty of the retired hands, mainly top management staff of the NNPC and the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), were said to have been sacked allegedly for corrupt practices.
The source who spoke to the Daily Trust on Sunday said President Muhammadu Buhari has given the NNPC leadership a firm instruction that appointments and promotions in the Corporation should be done strictly on merit and without any favouritism, while addressing any identified lopsidedness.
President Buhari has come under flak lately over his recent appointment of six key public officials, five of them from the North. Last week, the president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, had issued a statement announcing the appointment of Mr Babachir David Lawal as Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Lawal is from Adamawa State.
Also appointed were retired Colonel Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Bauchi State), Comptroller-General, Nigeria Customs Service; Mr Kure Martin Abeshi (Nasarawa State), Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Service; Alhaji Abba Kyari (Borno State), Chief of Staff; and Suleiman Abdulrahman Kawu (Kano State), Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly matters (House of Representatives). The sixth appointee, Senator Ita Enang, Senior Special Assistant, National Assembly matters (Senate), hails from Akwa Ibom state.
As criticisms trail the appointments, a voice in the Presidency, who pleaded anonymity, pointed at developments in the NNPC as one definition of the president’s policy direction on appointments which, he said, focuses on merit, integrity and broad-mindedness. Defending the president’s latest appointments last Thursday, Mr Adesina stated that every zone of the country would be well represented in federal appointments, as would especially be seen when the president releases the names of ministerial nominees next month as expected.
The recent round of appointments, promotions, redeployments and dismissals at the NNPC was part of the restructuring process embarked upon by the new NNPC Group Managing Director, Engineer Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who President Buhari brought in to replace Dr Joseph Dahwa.
In the new Kachikwu dispensation, President Buhari fired nine of the 16 managing directors of the strategic business units (SBUs) of the NNPC. Those affected included Haruna Momoh, who was the Managing Director of the PPMC; Anthony U. Muoneke, boss of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and the Group General Manager of the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) Engr Jonathan Kwame Okehs.
In their stead, the president approved the appointments of Mrs. Esther Nnamdi Ogbue as the new Managing Director of the PPMC, Mr. Abubakar Mai-Bornu, Managing Director of NPDC; and Mr Babatunde Bakare as chief of the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC).
Also appointed were Engr Chinedu Ezeribe, MD, Warri Refinning & Petrochemicals Company (WRPC); Mr Inuwa Ibrahim Waya, MD, Hydrocarbon Services Company Nigeria Ltd (HYSON); Mr Ladipo Fagbola, head the NNPC Retail; Mr Rowland Ewubare, MD, Integrated Data Services Ltd (IDSL); Mr Modupe Bammeke, MD, NNPC Properties; and Mr Abdulkadir Saidu, MD, Duke Oil, a subsidiary of the NNPC, among other appointments.
The government also appointed four new Group Executive Directors (GEDs), after retiring eight GEDs and subsequently trimming the number from eight to four

http://dailytrust.com.ng/news/news/-nnpc-appointments-under-buhari-favour-south/108629.html

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John Atte, former Depuy Comptroller General of Nigeria Custom has taken Over from Abdullahi Dikko Inde, The out gone Comptroller general, whose resignation was approved by Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday.
wever, other senior Customs officers in the ranks of DCG and Assistants Comptroller-General (ACG) are seriously lobbying to succeed Dikko with the DCG Tariff and Trade, Adewuyi Akinade and DCG, Enforcement, Investigation and Inspection, Musa Tahir said to be enjoying the backing of some powerful politicians from the South West and North East respectively.

Adewuyi hails from Oyo State while Tahir hails from Yobe State.

The other DCGs who are adopting a wait-and-see attitude include Chukwuma Nwosu (Enugu State), Ibrahim Mera (Kebbi State) and Gabriel Aliu (Kogi State).

The NCS also has 17 Assistants Comptroller-General, any of whom could be picked by the President to succeed Dikko, according to usually reliable sources.

They are ACG Excise & Duty, Dan Ugo (Benue State); ACG Human Resource Development, Patient Iferi (Cross River); Strategic Research and Policy, Austin Warikoru (Bayelsa); ACG Tariff and Trade, Grace Adeyemo (Ondo); ACG Excise Department, Robert Alu (Nassarawa) and Coordinator, Zone B, Ade Dosunmu (Lagos State).

The other ACGs are Coordinator, Zone D, Paul Ukaigwe (Imo State); Coordinator, Zone C, Ahmed Muhammed (Jigawa State); ACG Human Resource Development, Adeshina Odumbaku (Lagos State); ACG Investigation and Inspection, Bello Liman (Sokoto State); ACG Industrial Incentives, Monday Abueh (Rivers State); Coordinator, Zone A, ACG Victor Gbemudu (Delta State); Madu Mohammed (Yobe State), who is serving on the NCS Board; ACG Information, Communication and Technology, Iya Umar (Adamawa) and ACG Finance and Revenue, Bridget Okafor (Anambra).

Abdullahi had earlier written a letter dated August 3 to the President in which he notified Buhari of his desire to proceed on voluntary retirement from August 18.

Buhari’s approval of Abdullahi’s request was dated August 14 and personally signed by the President.

He thanked the NCS boss for his services to the county in the last six years.

The President’s letter was titled “Voluntary retirement from the Nigeria Customs Service.”

The approval read, “Dear, Alhaji D.I. Abdullahi. I write to acknowledge the receipt of your letter Ref. No. NCS/ADM/HQ/P. 35802 of 3rd August, 2015 conveying your decision to voluntarily retire from the Nigeria Customs Service with effect from Tuesday, 18th August, 2015.

“I note with appreciation your services to this nation, especially as the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service in the last six (6) years.

“Accordingly, I hereby approve your voluntary retirement from the Nigeria Customs Service with effect from 18th August 2015.

“I wish you the very best in your future endeavours.

“Yours sincerely, Muhammadu Buhari.”

Abdullahi had, in his letter to the President, thanked him for the confidence and trust reposed on him since he (Buhari) was inaugurated on May 29.

He said by August 18, he would be six years in office as the Comptroller-General of the NCS.

He recalled that on assumption of office, he articulated six-point agenda which he vigorously pursued.

He said the agenda had positively impacted on the efficiency and performance of officers of the service and had drastically changed the negative perception of the service.

He listed the six-point agenda to include capacity building, introduction of e-Customs, enhancing productivity through improved welfare package, moral rebirth for discipline and integrity in service, collaboration and partnering with stakeholders and international organisations, as well as fostering understanding of the Service in the eye of the general public using an intensified and a well-coordinated public relations platform.

The NCS boss said under his watch, the revenue collection into various coffers of government increased drastically.

He said the Service’s average monthly collection in 2009 when he took over was about N29billion, adding that the average monthly collection is currently between N90billion and N100billion.

He hinged his decision to embark on voluntary resignation on the need to allow young bloods to takeover the mantle of leadership of the Service in order to sustain and improve on his legacy.

Abdullahi concluded, “While thanking Your Excellency and indeed Nigerians for the opportunity to serve and contribute my quota to the development of our fatherland, I wish to seek approval of Your Excellency to be allowed to retire voluntarily on 18th August 2015.

“This decision is taken with a view to allowing young bloods takeover the mantle of leadership of the Service in order to sustain and improve on my legacy.”

The President has yet to name Abdullahi’s successor at the time of filing this report.
http://shipsandports.com.ng/john-atte-takes-over-customs-as-dikko-bows-out-today/

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Fears over President Muhammadu Buhari’s hard anti-corruption stance and style in governance are causing hesitance among some individuals being prospected for ministerial positions , BusinessDay has gathered.

Informed sources say that some of the individuals being prospected for ministerial positions fear they might fail the stringent integrity test and would prefer to wait this administration out and try their luck with another government, or in another endeavour, while others believe Buhari’s perceived hands-on style could undermine their effectiveness as ministers.

A former chief executive of a bank, who acknowledged that his friend was approached but was reluctant to accept said, “Apart from the integrity test, he feels that he might not be effective and bring out his best, considering the leadership style of Mr. President.”

Another respondent, an industrialist said, “I see the situation like ‘winner takes all’ and as such, you will only function as an adviser, irrespective of the portfolio one is assigned.”

This scepticism of some ministerial prospects and the seeming lack of preparedness by the National Assembly, due to intermitent recesses, may jeopardise the September deadline for the appointment of ministers, announced to the world by President Buhari.

BusinessDay further gathered Buhari may have narrowed down the selection to the military, traditional establishments and the international/financial community, and that he is mindful that criticism might come from those who may consider themselves as having being dumped.

This, according to some analysts might lay the foundation of a third party, consisting, mostly of disgruntled politicians from the ruling All Progressives Party (APC) and some hardliners from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Meanwhile, the nation awaits with bated breath, the composition of the cabinet next month, amidst the attendant lull in the economy due to the continued policy vacuum.

“Scandals and blackmailing of new ministers and appointees will force firings and resignations. The scramble for office will slow after Buhari deals with first insider culprits.

“The public arraignment of some former ministers and leading government officers will send strong signals around the country.

“Economic activities will remain tepid until clarity on fiscal policy direction. The market will be looking to see how Buhari will move against corruption within his ranks,” says Bismarck Rewane, in the current note from Lagos Business School Breakfast meeting.

Rewane further says that the appointment of cabinet members will have three tracks, comprising of influence from the retired military constituency, establishment (traditional rulers) and international and financial community, stressing however that the criteria will be competence, pedigree and integrity.

Opeyemi Agbaje, chief executive officer, RTC Advisory services limited, in the current “Business and Economic Review”, said the policy vacuum would persist till next year, as the cabinet may not be ready, due to the likely delay from the National Assembly, due to their penchant for recesses, even when nothing has been achieved.

“We hope the wait for policy and governance will be worth the wait and that once the cabinet is finally constituted, the government will swiftly and effectively confront Nigeria’s economic, political and other challenges,” Agbaje said.

Olu Fasan, a London-based lawyer and political economist, in his published article on “Beyond Buhari’s ministers: A thought on the mandarins said, “President Buhari’s unwillingness so far, to appoint his ministers, was thus to make the point that Nigeria doesn’t yet have a fully functioning government since a significant part, the cabinet, is still missing.

“For the sake of effective governance, this is not sustainable for much longer. It is certainly not sustainable or even prudent that at a time of serious economic crisis, there is no finance minister to provide political leadership and policy direction. “Instead, the Central Bank governor is acting as the defacto finance and trade ministers, making far reaching fiscal and trade policy decisions.”

John Omachonu

http://businessdayonline.com/2015/08/ministerial-prospects-shy-away-on-buharis-hard-outlook/

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A plane carrying 54 people is missing in a remote region of the country's Papuan provinces, Indonesia's transport ministry has confirmed.

A spokesman for the ministry told ABC News the plane was a Trigana Air flight carrying 49 passengers, including two children and three toddlers, and five crew members.

The plane took off from Jayapura at 2:22pm local time (3:22pm AEST) for what should have been about a 40-minute flight to Oskibil.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the turboprop plane about 30 minutes later at 2:52pm, several minutes before its 3:00pm scheduled time of arrival.

Oksibil is about 40 kilometres from the border with Papua New Guinea and is the capital of the Bintang Mountains Regency.

Bad weather has hampered the search, which has been called off until tomorrow.

"We are not sure what happened to the plane yet and we are coordinating with local authorities," transport ministry spokesman JA Baratahe said.

"The weather is currently very bad there, it's very dark and cloudy.

"It's not conducive for a search. The area is mountainous."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-16/indonesian-aircraft-carrying-54-missing-in-papua/6701198

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