It is 10 days since the return of Taraba State Governor Danbaba Suntai. Contrary to expecta tions, the situation in the state is getting worrisome by the day. The House of Assembly has asked Suntai to go back to the United States to continue with his treatment until he is fit to take over his office as governor. The Speaker, Haruna Tsokwa, said the Deputy Governor, Alhaji Garba Umar, should continue to act until the governor is fit.
Suntai arrived in Nigeria two Sundays ago from Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Centre and Home, New York, where he had been recuperating, having been moved there from the German hospital he was flown to after the multiple injuries he received in the October 25, 2012 plane crash at Yola Airport. He spent four months in the New York hospital. He had earlier spent about six months in the German Hospital, bringing his stay outside the country for medical treatment to 10 months.
The governor, a pilot, flew the ill-fated Cessna 208. With him in the aircraft were his Aide de Camp (ADC), Iliya Dasat, Chief Detail, Joel Danladi and Chief Security Officer (CSO), Tino Dangana, all of whom have recovered from the injuries sustained in the crash and returned to the country. While in Germany, it was reported that the governor had brain-damage from the severe injuries he sustained in the head in the crash. It was reported then that Suntai may not be able to function effectively again as governor because it would take some time for him to fully recover and return to the country. The report generated a lot of controversy but the state government refuted it and insisted that Suntai was not brain-damaged. He was actually responding positively and very fast to treatment, it said.
The governor arrived in the country by a chartered aircraft, a Gulf Stream Jet belonging to Shell Air. He was assisted to disembark from the plane by three men and later driven straight from the tarmac to the VIP lounge of the Yola International Airport. None of the reporters who thronged the airport, anxious for a good interview with him, was allowed access to him. Suntai, from his picture taken at the airport on the day of arrival and published in the dailies, looked frail and was expressionless contrary to the mood and excitement that greeted his arrival. The pictures in the dailies showed him with a raised hand as if waving but reports said he was not really doing that.
Two days after his arrival, Suntai was reported to have transmitted a letter to the Taraba State House of Assembly intimating them of his desire to resume duty. In reply, the assembly members asked him to appear before it to enable them decide on his request. Instead of accepting the invitation of the state assembly, the governor in a broadcast to the state, announced the dissolution of the state executive council and appointed a former Commissioner for Justice, Timothy Katap as new Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and Alhaji Aminu Jika as Chief of Staff, Government House.
From the day he was involved in the plane crash on October 25 last year, up till the time he arrived the country and to date, Governor Suntai has been enmeshed in one controversy or the other, which continues to put the state in a political logjam.
Barely 24 hours after Suntai addressed the people of the state through a recorded video that lasted less than three minutes, the state assembly advised the governor to return to US hospital for further treatment until he is fit and proper to govern the state.
The speaker, Haruna Tsokwa and 15 other legislators, asked the Deputy Governor to continue in office as governor in acting capacity. The Majority leader, Joseph Albasu, however opposed the decision saying the governor was fit to take over his office. Albasu said that they saw the governor in New york and had conversation with him upon his return and that he is sound enough to resume work. Albasu said the governor has fulfilled the provision of the constitution, having written the house to express his desire to resume work. To him, the governor does not have to address the house to determine his fitness as this isunconstitutional. But the speaker, Haruna Tsokwa insisted that Suntai must appear on the floor of the house and speak to the law makers. In the alternative, some principal officers must go to talk to him. The Coalition of Taraba Youth Movement in Jalingo also want the governor to address the house. “The state is in a state of confusion because the people do not know what to believe”, they said. The speaker alleged that Suntai’s wife, Hauwa, blocked some officials that made an initial attempt to see him. He told journalists that from the manner the governor spoke, when they were finally allowed to see him by his aides who initially rebuffed them, they doubted if he actually wrote the letter in which the governor purportedly wrote and indicated his desire to resume work. They doubted if the signature on the letter was actually that of Suntai. In a statement, the 15 lawmakers who have taken a position on the matter, said that the governor is not fit and should go back for recuperation in New York. The statement read in part, “ We the undersigned members of the state assembly have unanimously resolved in our meeting that the deputy governnor, upon whom power was earlier transmitted by the state house of assembly still remains the acting governor of Taraba state and he will continue until such a time the governor is capable of administering the state”, they stated.
The legislators include Deputy speaker, Tanko Maikafi; Chief Whip, Mohammed Gwampo, Deputy Minorty leader, Josiah Kente. Others are Deputy Chief Whip, Mohammed Umar, Minorty whip, Yahya Abdulrahman, Iratsi Daki, Rashida Abdullahi, Aminu Umar, Emmanuel Dame, Jonathan Bonzema, Dr. Abubakar Jugulde, Hamman Abdullahi, Abdulkarim Mohammed and Edward Baraya. But Emmanue Bello, a former Commissioner for Information and an aide to Suntai, said the action of the lawmakers was null and void and a figment of their imagination stressing that the lawmakers do not have the constitutional power to do what they did. “So what they have done is unconstitutional”. To him, “only medical experts can determine the state of health of a person. He said Suntai read, writes and sign documents.
Bello questioned the criteria used by the lawmakers in arriving at their decision on whether or not the governor is fit for office as they are not medical experts.
He said that as long as the law makers do not subject Suntai to medical checks, they are not in position to say he was not fit to govern the state.
But based on the decision of the state assembly, the deputy governor, Garba Umar has continued in office by announcing to the people of the state to disregard the dissolution of the executive by Suntai.
The return of the governor of Taraba after 10 months that he has been away for medical treatment and his desire to assume office and govern the state has raised a lot of fundamental and constitutional issues.
Some believe the provision of the constitution should guide the development in the state, they likened the situation to what Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State did when he came back from overseas where he had gone to receive treatment. He wrote the house of his readiness to resume work in line with the constitution. But some pundits differ, they asked whether it would be appropriate to rigidly apply the constitution given the present state of the governor. To this latter group, the situation in Taraba was likened to what Nigeria went through when the late President Yar’ Adua was brought back to the country and the governance of the country was being done by proxy. This group believed that the people of Taraba state should not be subjected to that kind of experience.
In all of this, what is the position of the constitution on the manner of how an ailing governor should come back to duty? Who determines the fitness of a governor to resume duty? What is the way forward in Taraba? These are the questions begging for answers.
Lawyers’ reaction:
Constitutional lawyers who are versed in the the law are united on the controversy surrounding the state of health of the governor and his desire to return to office and other issues.
The umbrella body of Lawyers in the country, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) posited that the best thing is for Governor Suntai to address the House of Assembly if he is indeed healthy enough to resume duties.
The NBA, through its President, Okey Wali (SAN), said the controversy over the governor’s health status was capable of creating constitutional and political crisis in the state. He said reports that there are “pseudo-governors” in Taraba should be cleared once and for all to restore the people’s faith in governance.
Activist-lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) said a “political cabal” may have hijacked governance in Taraba State. He alleged that ailing Governor Danbaba Suntai could not have written the letter sent to the House of Assembly on his readiness to resume official duties and consequently has petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation,Mohammed Adoke (SAN), the Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Abubakar and the Speaker, Taraba House, Haruna Tsokwa, urging them to investigate and make public the true state of Suntai’s health.
Falana said his petition to Adoke was based on the Freedom of Information Act.
On why he wrote the petitions, Falana said: “Unfortunately, another political cabal has emerged in Taraba State to cause confusion and to deny the ailing governor the opportunity to have himself fully treated.
“He’s been brought back to the country to achieve certain selfish political interests that have further endangered the health of the governor.
“He’s not in a position, from the information at my disposal, to write a letter, to compose a letter, to sign a letter and to send the letter to the House of Assembly of Taraba State.
“Hence, I’ve sent a petition to the Inspector-General of Police to investigate the circumstances surrounding the writing of that letter.
“I have also sent another one to the Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly to set up a committee to investigate the health situation of the governor.
“Based on information that the Presidency or the Federal Government has information on the true state of health of the governor, I have sent a petition to the Attorney-General of the Federation under the Freedom of Information Act to make available to me and to the Nigerian people the state of health of the governor so that the citizens of Taraba State can be properly governed in line with the Constitution.”
Falana said if Suntai was healthy enough to resume his duties, he should have met with his deputy and the Speaker for a full briefing on how the state fared in his absence.
“It is very dangerous for us that this culture of impunity has continued unchecked.
“If the governor has recovered, and is prepared to resume his duties since Sunday, he should have appeared in his office, attending to his files; he should have allowed the deputy governor to brief him on how he has run the state since he has been away.
“He should have met with the speaker to find out what the House has done, but to keep him away from all the relevant officials and agencies of state is not acceptable.
“And for some people to be running the show, and signing a letter purportedly signed by the governor should not be tolerated in any decent society, having regard to what this country went through when the late President Umar Yar’Adua was similarly brought back to the country.
“It was the same way the then Vice-President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan was shielded away. The Senate President, the Speaker of the House – all of them were not allowed to even visit President Yar’Adua. And it’s been done now in Taraba State.
“The relevant officials that should invoke the Constitutional provisions are not allowed access to the governor. It should not be tolerated”, he added.
Lagos lawyer activist, Ikechukwu Ikeji noted that there are genuine concerns about the ailing governor’s real state of health. There were also doubts that the said letter of resumption from Suntai did not emanate from him in his truly conscious self, with members of the House insinuating that the governor does not have the presence of mind and body to have written the letter and that it is a proxy who wrote it.
“The fear is that the governor may be governing through proxies and this in itself is unknown to the Constitution. A tidier line of action would have been that Governor Suntai’s aides make public the doctor’s report declaring him fit to do his work. “Permanent incapacity does not mean permanency of the condition but inability to work. In my view, the Suntai I have seen on television is unable to function as governor both mentally and physically. He is frail, unstable and has difficulty of speech. It is most unfair for people around him to force governance on him when he should be resting and recuperating. This is my quarrel with the situation. The point has to be made that the ‘’state of health’’ of our elected officials should be public information,” he said.
Ikeji said if the intention of asking Governor Suntai to address them is to approve his resuming to his position, the Assembly does not have such power under the Constitution. But in terms of appropriateness, I submit that the Assembly is right in asking him to address them because there is genuine concern that he is not fit to resume.
“What we see happening is governing by proxy and this is not envisaged by the Constitution. Governor Suntai should continue with his recuperation and allow the Deputy Governor to continue acting until he is fully fit to face the exertions of daily governance and meetings required of the office. Whenever he is fully fit, he can simply take over his position without fuss from any quarter. The Acting Governor, at least from the surface, has shown that he is not unduly desperate to become substantive Governor. If he had such ambition in an inordinate manner, he had the power all this while to have dissolved the executive council, rightly or wrongly, and appointed his own people who would then easily come under Section 189 of the Constitution as amended to declare Suntai permanently incapacitated to function as Governor and thereby kickstart the process of medical examination by a panel of five experienced medical practitioners to determine the true state of health of Suntai,” he added.
Constitutional lawyer, Mr Fred Agbaje supported the position of the law makers that the governor should go back to New York to continue with his treatment.
He said: ”The lawmakers are correct in insisting that Suntai go back to hospital to continue with his treatment. They are the ones on ground, and they know the truth that the governor is not medically fit , that he is not the same Suntai they used to know.”
The situation in Taraba, Agbaje noted, is a “recap of the Turai-Yar’Adua case of a few years ago. I think Nigerians and Tarabans have learnt their lessons and don’t want a repeat of that episode. If he goes on TV with his picture by proxy to address the people of the state whereas he is not fit, he would have succeeded in doing what I called civilian treachery and is invariably causing damage to the fabric of the constitution,” Agbaje said .
The way forward for Taraba
Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN) said a medical report is critical to resolving the political logjam in Taraba. He said the authorities in Taraba need to get the appropriate medical report to determine if the governor is fit or not.
Akinjide also cited the role the constitution has to play in the matter. “The constitution is clear on cases like this. There should be expert report. They can’t resolve the crisis without it. The onus falls on medical report,” he said.
Another lawyer Kayode Ajulo counselled the speaker to institute a five-man medical team to determine the fitness of the governor. Citing Section 189(4a) and (4b), he said the speaker has the power to set up such panel in a case where the governor is showing unfitness of sorts.
Constitutional lawyer, Mr Fred Agbaje also suggested the need for a medical approach to the matter on hand. “My advice is that a medical panel consisting of five medical personnel, one of which must be the personal physician of governor Suntai, be constituted to examine him to determine if he is fit to govern the state. When the panel decides whether he is fit or not, the matter will be resolved,” he said.
Agbaje further said there is adequate provision in the constitution in Section 189 of the amended constitution to solve the situation.
To the NBA, the only option is for the governor to speak directly to the assembly members and not by proxy. “The governor should address the House of Assembly. If he does not address the House, then it means he is not there”, said Okey Wali.
For Falana, the way out is for Suntai to meet with his deputy and the Speaker for a full briefing on how the state fared in his absence if he was healthy enough to resume his duties.
Ikeji remarked that the health of Governor Suntai is pivotal and that any resolution, short term or long term, should address his true state of health. He said that a blind and rigid interpretation of the Constitution can only lead to chaos in Taraba State.
He challenged Suntai’s handlers to make public his certified true state of health provided by qualified medical personnel.
He said governor Suntai and the people around him should douse the tension by proving him fit and capable, health-wise, to be governor.”
He can do this by presenting himself to the State House of Assembly as was requested of him by the House in addition to subjecting himself to an independent transparent medical examination by an esteemed team of medical practitioners to ascertain his true state of health.
Indeed, this is an appropriate time to test the Freedom of Information Act since Suntai’s state of health ought to be public.
