1986 coup: 38 years after, Late General Vatsa’s family demands justice

***Appeals to FG to investigate coup allegation

With barely 24 hours after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ordered the federal government to revisit the case of the brutal murder of Dele Giwa, the family of late General Mamman Jiya Vatsa who was executed for an alleged coup in 1986 has appealed to the Federal Government to investigate the trial and the eventual killing of their son.
The late former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the General Ibrahim Babangida administration was executed along with nine other military officers in 1986 after they were accused of plotting a coup to overthrow the military administration of the General Babangida, his kinsman.
The younger brother and the spokesperson for the late General Vatsa family, and former commissioner for Information Culture and Tourism and Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Niger state, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa said now that the court in Abuja has ordered the federal government to investigate the brutal murder of Dele Giwa, the case of General Vatsa and nine other military officers should also be revisited.

Recalled that the Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday ordered the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF) to resume the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the 1986 murder of Dele Giwa, the renowned investigative journalist and founder of Newswatch Magazine.
Dele Giwa was brutally murdered in his Lagos home on October 19, 1986, through a letter bomb during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida.
Speaking to a group of Journalists in Minna, Niger state capital on Saturday, the former commissioner appealed to the Federal Government to order the re-investigation into the coup allegation against General Vatsa and nine other military officers, insisting that the entire coup allegation was a frame up to kill the military officers.
He pointed out that the appeal had become necessary because the whole world must know the truth behind the killing of late General Vatsa, adding that “we believe that our brother, our uncle and our father is innocent of the coup allegation, it was a frame up”.
In addition to this, the family said after the re-trial and he is found innocent as they believed, there is the need for the family to exhumed the body for a proper and befitting burial, stressing that “we know that he cannot come back to life but let the whole world know the truth about his killing.
“Our appeal is for the Federal Government to order investigation into the killing of our brother and nine other officers just as the Federal High Court has ordered for the killing of the veteran Journalist, Dele Giwa.
“All these happened in 1986 under one administration so if justice must be done to one, it should be done to all. The 1986 coup was a complete frame up against the late General Vatsa just to eliminate him.
“We have not seen where a soldier who does not command any battalion as at the time he was framed up could lead a coup plot that is why we want the trial and the execution investigated.
“His death still remain very fresh not only in the minds of the immediate family but the entire Gulu Vatsa community because he was the light of the people. His killing created a serious vacuum in the community”, Vatsa added.