General Ibrahim Babangida’s former Minister of Defence and ex-Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Nigerian Armed Forces, General Domkat Yah Bali, is dead. He was 80 years old.
Domkat Bali, born 27 February 1940, was the Ponzhi Tarok, a paramount ruler of his town since December, 2010. He was a retired four-star General of the Nigerian Army.
Domkat Bali was born in Langtang, Plateau State to the family of Hassan Bali Tabut and Yinkat Bali. He had his primary education at Mban, Langtang and from 1955 to 1960, he attended the provincial secondary school at Kuru. He undertook further military courses at Camberley, London.
He entered Nigerian Military Training College in 1961 and in 1964, he was a lieutenant and troop commander. Bali became captain a year later in 1965.
Bali rose through the ranks and became minister of defence and chief of defence staff, two positions he had combined since 1984.
Bali will be remembered for offering a reflection on one of the phantom coups that occurred during the Babangida years and the carnage that followed.
It was the so-called Mamman Vatsa plot said to have been uncovered in late 1985, in which at the end of some trial in 1986, Vatsa and many young military officers were executed.
Bali, as chief of defence staff made the announcement of guilt and execution of the purported coup plotters when he said: “They have in fact been executed an hour ago.” This was when Nigerians were expecting clemency as a result of the appeal made by Prof Soyinka and the other poets.
Many years later, Bali harboured doubts whether the action was right.
He did not hesitate to voice out his concern.
“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 cannot say, don’t do it’. I am not so sure whether we were right to have killed him”, he said in an interview with TheNEWS in 2006.
He resigned from the army on January 10, 1990 after Babangida had reshuffled his cabinet and removed him from Ministry of Defence to Interior.
He was the Chairman of HFP Engineering, builders of Victoria Garden City, Lagos Nigeria. He was married to Esther Bali an educationist and they have two children, Nanna and Ponfa.