…Appeals to FG to investigate treason allegation
From John Adams, Minna
Barely 24 hours after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ordered the Federal Government to revisit the e brutal murder of Dele Giwa, the family of late Gen Mamman Jiya Vatsa who was executed following allegation of coup plotting in 1986, has appealed to the current Federal Government to investigate the trial and the eventual killing of its son.
Vasta who was a former Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the General Ibrahim Babangida administration, was executed along with nine other military officers in 1986 over allegation of plotting a coup to overthrow the then administration.
Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, younger brother and the spokesperson for the late General Vatsa family, former Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State, said now that the court in Abuja had ordered the Federal Government to investigate the brutal murder of Dele Giwa, the case of late Gen Vatsa and nine other military officers needed to be revisited.
The Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday ordered the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF) to resume investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the 1986 murder of Dele Giwa, an investigative journalist, and founder of the defunct Newswatch magazine.
Dele Giwa was brutally murdered in his Lagos home on October 19, 1986, through a letter bomb during the military regime of Gen Babangida.
Speaking to a group of journalists in Minna, Niger State capital on Saturday, Vasta appealed to the Federal Government to order a re-investigation into the coup allegation against his brother and nine other military officers, insisting that the entire coup allegation was a frame up to kill them.
He pointed out that the appeal had become necessary because the whole world must know the truth behind the killing of late Gen Vatsa, adding: “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 was found innocent as it believed, there would be a need for the family to exhumed the body and give it proper burial, stressing that “we know that he cannot come back to life, but let the whole world know the truth about his killing.
“What we are appealing is for the Federal Government to order an investigation into the killing of our brother and nine other officers, just as the Federal High Court has ordered in the case of 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 Gen Vatsa just to eliminate him.
“We have not seen where a soldier who did 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 remains 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.