Vatsa's Case - A Stolen Wallet And Evidence: By Soji Omole

I would rather take off on an hypothetical lane and let the pendulum keep swinging "left right, left right" as soldiers themselves march on parade ground. Then drop the hypothesis along the way, as we cruise on.
Why would I?
Until you find yourself in someone else's shoe many years later, you may continue to wrongly judge or accuse him of taking matters too far. Especially with a childhood friend and classmate.
On a personal experience, in a space of just between 2014 to date, I have found myself falling out with friends and men I highly revered. I mean friends and men that if a prophet have spoken they won't be in my good book again in five years time, I will ask such prophet to go and pray again.
Bottom line?
Time changes men and men change with time.

With my experience several years later, there is no way I can pass an outright judgement on this matter again same way I did in 1986, without weighing the options left and right. Having tasted the bitter experience of betrayals from trusted friends and loved ones myself, I understand how devastating it is could be to be betrayed by someone close to you. It can be quite shocking and traumatic.
Two hypothesis I will lay bare on the table.
Weather an evidence is weak or strong, there is of a must of an event relating to  the evidence. Failure to now prove it beyond reasonable doubt is what cause cases to be lost in a courts of law. And which lawyers are feasting on daily as defence counsels.

Why can't he attend public
functions like his contemporaries?
Your guess is good as mine

On Wednesday, August 29, 2018, the driver that took me from Kugbo to Area 3 in Abuja, smartly stole my wallet from my laptop bag. A wallet containing four ATM cards and some money I just cashed out, sent to me by one of my big bosses for a crucial sales and marketing assignment.
The evidence may be quite weak because I did not catch the driver red handed stealing it. But weak as the evidence was, two things established the heartless criminal incident. 1. The driver in his hurry forgot to zip back the bag and left it still unzipped. 2. The wallet was missing and was never found.
That an evidence is weak in a matter does not invalidate it's occurrence.
Was a coup planned? Was General Mamman Vatsa involved? That he had a close call to duty working relationship with one of the plotters, Lt Col Musa Bitiyong may be implicating enough, though weak in circumstantial evidence like the stolen wallet and the driver.
That Babangida refused to spare an old classmate and childhood friend may be bad enough. But like the saying goes, he who feels it knows it. That a trusted childhood friend and classmate is a suspected accomplice in an incendiary against you could be both devastating and very painful. I have been through it myself over the years. Even from blood relations! It stings hard like an adder. Yet you've got to allow wise counsel to prevail and not throw caution to the winds, on how you react. Else.....

Vatsa: A man of class, taste and creative style
to match his creative literary skill 

Emotion may have therefore beclouded Babangida's sense of reasoning to prove and establish things further, which did not swing my pendulum to his side at all. That Vatsa's former ADC, Captain Waku suddenly turned against him speak volumes again. The ADC is close to his boss, always following him wherever he goes. Therefore he must have seen or heard something, whether in verbal or body language. Soldiers have a commendable characteristic - which is loyalty to a boss, even if that boss is in trouble. Therefore an ADC can't just turn against his boss overnight.
Major Al- Mustapha began his relationship with Sani Abacha as an intelligence officer to him, when he was the Chief of Army Staff. Till date, Mustapha is still ready to die for his late boss, if need be! Soldiers just don't swing loyalty like that.
But who knows if the ADC had been bought over? Or did not Judas betrayed his boss -Master Jesus? How much more when what is at stake now is not 30 pieces of silver, but some millions of naira, when money was money in those days, accelerated career advancement and promotions coupled with choice properties in Victoria Island? Plus a plum appointment to match? So again, it still made the evidence weak, in agreement with Retired General Domkat Bali's position.

General Domkat Bali(left): He still believed the evidence was weak and wished he could do
something to help out Vatsa(right)

That events proved Babangida right the following year 1987, when the closest friend and ally of late Captain Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré, murdered him in cold blood and took over power from him in Burkina - Fasso, will still not swing my pendulum on the side of Babangida for not sparing his childhood friend's life.
He could still have spared his friend's life, if only for old times sake. What is more? Reason being that Babangida got every reason to rejoice that a coup plot against him by someone he called a friend, did not succeed but was detected early enough and foiled. What more could he have wanted from God again?
Babangida could as well put Vatsa where he belonged, dismiss or retire him from the army and put him under permanent and perpetual surveillance. Then distance himself from him as a traitor and leave him to his conscience.

Abacha still spared Obasanjo, Fadile & co who werenot even his friends, after several
pleas and pressure.

That Rawlings still plotted a coup in prison is not enough justification and excuse for Babangida not to rather dismiss or jail his friend Vatsa, instead of killing him.
1. Babangida as an evil genius is too smart for a man to plot a coup against him in prison or as a civilian, when he is out of military service.
2. How come Idiagbon or Buhari did not plot a coup against him when he slammed them into detention after overthrowing their government? It therefore made his reason and excuse for not sparing Vatsa's life but executing him very weak, just as the evidence of coup plot against him was.
Why would Babangida kill rather than spare a childhood friend and classmate?There are two ways to it.
Either (1). Babangida got overwhelmed with emotions. And therefore over reacted. And may be even regretted it later.

Jerry Rawlings: Could any have succeeded in
plotting and executing a coup successfully
in prison against Babangida in Nigeria
like he did in Ghana?

(2). Babangida simply want an opportunity to get rid of his childhood friend, whom he saw as a rival and of course a would be strong critic of his several diabolical policies, schemes and actions, many years later.
Babangida knew that one of those who will always oppose him on many infamous decisions he took years later in his administration, will be no other than his close friend - Vatsa. A brilliant literary giant in the class of Wole Soyinka, who found himself in the military will always remain a radical critic. So having a brilliant literary icon and critic the likes of Vatsa in government cannot make Babangida feel comfortable. Especially with his plan to perpetuate himself in power. A plan he kept implementing until June 12 ran him out of ideas!

Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola and June 12 Babangida's
Achilles heel.
The June 12 debacle ran the
evil genius out of ideas

Therefore Vatsa, who despite his stylish airs, was a man of sound moral principles, who would not even allocate a plot of land for his own very wife when he was the FCT minister, wouldn't have tolerated such trash of nonsense with Babangida, had he still been in government with him. Nor will Vatsa a man of  high moral standards seat in a government and watch corruption institutionalised without batting an eyelid. Just as Babangida's infamous code language is "get him out of the way!"
An evidence of coup plotting, however weak, is good to go for Vatsa.
The accusation that Vatsa's acclerated approval of C of O in FCT for the military as the minister was a ploy by him to buy loyalty of the men and officers and used as another WEAK evidence against him is the most callous of all the weak evidences.
If Vatsa does not fast track approval of documents for his constituency - the military, who are not only in government but in power, will he not be taking his moral standards too far? And would it not have a boomerang effect of inciting rebellion against the establishment among the ranks and file of the military?
The mission is simply, any perceived potential enemy of Babangida's infamous hidden agenda "get him out of the way!"

Dele Giwa:
"Get him out of the way" for
biting more than he can chew?

Even a prominent respected and very popular politician, of which region I would rather not state, much more of his name, has to be set up with a coup to "get him out of the way!" Because as long as the man is alive, he remains a threat to the infamous hidden agenda. A well known fact that remains a subject of  future symposium, to borrow the words of Fela in a concert in Germany.
I rest my case here.
                 Soji Omole