Governor Suntai’s purported letter divides Taraba Assembly

From The Guardian...

It was a letter meant to strike the right chord in the hearts of lawmakers. It was expected that they would readily agree that the governor was fit to resume work.  

But the letter has turned out to be a divisive factor in the Taraba State House of Assembly. Some lawmakers insisted yesterday that Governor Danbaba Suntai’s letter to the House stating his readiness to resume work after his medical treatment abroad was not enough.

They want him to make himself physically available at the House in order for the lawmakers to assess his fitness for work. These lawmakers even doubt that the governor was the one that wrote the letter. They insist he might not have been fit enough to write the letter.

 

But other lawmakers disagree; they want the House to approve the letter.

Apparently, there were attempts to keep this disagreement from the public domain. This is because the members of the House only met behind closed doors yesterday to discuss the letter. 

Though none of the lawmakers could be reached for comments, an official of the Assembly told The Guardian that the “problem now is that some of them (lawmakers) want to know if it was the governor that actually wrote the letter.”

He said that “while some of the members want the governor to appear before them to confirm if he is the actual author of the letter, some of them are strongly opposing the idea of him appearing.”

At the end of the long meeting, many people who were at the House hoping to witness the way the issue would be resolved were disappointed.

More worrisome was the decision to prevent people from gaining access to the gallery as the doors were locked.

It was also observed that the number of the security operatives at the entrance of the Assembly was increased and journalists were made to identify themselves before being allowed access to the complex.

Though efforts to interview the Speaker, Haruna Tsokwa, did not succeed as all his telephone numbers were not going through, a close associate of his said that the plan on ground “is to get him impeached.”

The leader and members of the Coalition of Taraba Youth Movement were at the House, but left disappointed.

He said the group would resist any attempt by the members to prevent the governor from appearing before the House.

The chairman of the group, Abubakar Abba Waziri, told The Guardian at the Assembly: “We are very much aware of their plan to stop the governor from appearing before them, but that I bet you, we would not entertain.

“All that we are just after is for us to see the governor talking to the people because we don’t believe in governance by proxy.”

He urged the members to put their differences aside and “do the right thing because posterity would one day judge them.”

The continuous shielding of the governor from the public, he observed, would increase the already existing tension in the state hence the need for Nigerians to speak with one voice to prevail on the members to force the governor to appear before them or “to go ahead and address the press.”

The governor, who arrived in the state last Sunday amid tight security, as observed by The Guardian, has not made a public statement.

“You know it is not easy for one to be on air for almost 12 hours. He has just returned home from a stressful journey. So, for him to speak to the people or journalists now is not the best, but I assure you that that would be done soon,” an aide of the governor said.

He urged patience as the governor, according to him, would soon begin to reach out to the people of the state.

Later, yesterday night, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly vowed not to allow the governor to resume until he addressed the public.

Even though he acknowledged receiving the letter transmitted to the House by the governor, he said that for it to sail through, the governor must address the people of the state.

The Speaker said that his failure to “do so means that he is not yet fit to run the affairs of the state.” The Speaker also alleged that the family of Suntai prevented the House members from visiting the governor.

The Majority Leader of the House, Joseph Albasu Kunnini, earlier told  journalists that the governor could go ahead to resume office since he had passed through the due process of transmitting the letter to the members.

He said both the Speaker and his deputy had both gone underground so as to stop the members from sitting to deliberate on the letter.

But the Speaker denied the allegation that they went underground in order to halt the process of allowing the governor to resume office.

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