It was the Nobel Prize literature laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, who in a moment of exasperation once lamented what he described as the vicious cycle of human stupidity. He was no doubt denouncing the tendency for generation after generation of the human species to repeat the same recurrent errors responsible for much of the available misery, grief, exploitation and injustice in which the world is enmeshed today despite the phenomenal increase in man’s technical and intellectual capacity to create an infinitely better world.
Nowhere is this capacity for recurrent acts of destructive stupidity more apparent than here in Nigeria, the great Kongi’s own homeland. The way our politicians play the all- consuming game of politics today – the obsession with power devoid of service, the pursuit of self- aggrandisement and pecuniary accumulation, the cynical manipulation of ethno-regional, religious and other fissures – shows a political elite that has learnt little or nothing from past failures.
It is simply difficult to imagine that a country that went through the harrowing experiences occasioned by the late President Umaru ‘Yar’Adua’s protracted physical incapacitation could allow the veritable theatre of the absurd playing itself out today in Taraba state. Despite Yar’Adua’sinherent personal dignity and nobility of character, a cabal capitalized on his physical frailty to hijack the machinery of governance and run the affairs of the country in his name.
Completely indifferent to the debilitating physical condition of the ailing President and the excruciating psychological torture he was going through, this feral cabal kept him imprisoned in Aso Villa. They subjected him in his infirm state to the strenuous burdens of governance when a good rest out of public life in his native Katsina could probably have prolonged his life span. While the cabal furtively ferried him across the world in search of an elusive medical succour, they kept the country fed on a steady diet of falsehood as regards the President’s remarkably improved health and enhanced physical vigour.
At the height of their treasonable antics, the cabal flew the obviously dying Yar’Adua back into the country from a Saudi Arabia hospital under cover of darkness and with a massive deployment of troops in Abuja that remains a mystery till date. By this time and following intense pressure from civil society groups and the opposition, the National Assembly had invoked the utilitarian ‘doctrine of necessity’ to declare Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan Acting President of the country.
Yet, the cabal remained determined to prevent Jonathan from succeeding his terminally ill boss in office as demanded by the constitution. Appropriation estimates were signed and other activities undertaken in the name of a President who was clearly no more conscious of his environment.
It is perhaps because those responsible for the treasonous antics of the Yar’Adua cabal, during his health travails, were never brought to book and made to account for their actions that the nation is being subjected today to another round of ‘cabalistic’ stupidity in Taraba State.
Of course, the story of Taraba is straight forward. Until he crashed in a Cessna 208, 5N – BMJ jet piloted by himself in Yola, Adamawa state on October 25, 2013, Governor Dambaba Suntai was in sound health. Following the crash, however, he reportedly suffered severe injuries in the head and had to be flown out of the country; first to Germany and then the United States for sophisticated medical attention. During his 10-month absence, the Taraba State House of Assembly authorised the Deputy Governor, Garba Umar, to act as Governor pending the recuperation and return of his boss.
In the absence of Governor Suntai, the Taraba cabal, in a manner reminiscent of the Yar’Adua days, fed the media with all kinds of stories and visuals portraying the man as making rapid recovery. Certainly none but the most gullible and mentally vulnerable could be persuaded by such crude and deceptive propaganda. The drama reached a climax on August 25th, when a supposedly fully recovered Suntai was flown into Taraba State from the United States. The visuals portraying his return were a public relations disaster.
He was supported on both sides by hefty aides. He looked unnaturally blank and could not even manage a wave to his ‘teeming’ supporters. After a controversial 10-month absence, he could not even spare a word with news hungry journalists at the airport. Yet, the following day, he had purportedly transmitted a letter to the House of Assembly signalling his recovery and readiness to resume work. He followed this up by purportedly dissolving the state Executive Council and appointing a new Secretary to the State Government and a new Chief of Staff.
These actions were naturally bound to generate intense controversy given the hovering uncertainty as regards the Governor’s health. The state was virtually plunged into crisis. Motivated perhaps by principle, a commitment to constitutionalism or their own sectional partisan considerations on Taraba’s treacherous and complex terrain, 16 of the 24 state legislators led by the Speaker insist that the governor has not demonstrated sufficiently that he either wrote the letter intimating the House of his return or that he is fit to govern and that the status quo thus remains.
Emboldened by the stance of the House of Assembly, the Acting Governor has described the purported dissolution of the Executive Council as null and void attributing the action to a self-seeking cabal and not the Governor. Here I think both the 16 members of the House and the Acting Governor must tread carefully.
Even if they believe that a pro-Suntai cabal is acting unconstitutionally, that must not be an excuse for them to also toe the path of lawlessness. They must thus be on firm ground that one, the letter did not emanate from the Governor and two that they are in a position to authoritatively pronounce on his state of health. Two unconstitutional wrongs after all do not make a right. This is especially because of the evidence that Suntai addressed the state and actually swore in his two new aides no matter how frail he looked or sounded.
Having said that, let me stress that whatever may be the presumed motives of those who question his mental and physical fitness to rule, the onus still rests on Governor Suntai to demonstrate convincingly that he is fully ready to resume office.
Taraba is too important, strategic, complex and sensitive a state to be left in charge of a man not fully in control of his physical mental faculties even for one second. And it is even more dangerous to leave the state in the charge of an unelected, mercenary cabal ruling in the name of a helplessly incapacitated man.
It must be said here that the drafters of the 1999 constitution had envisaged and made provision for this kind of situation. Section 189 (a) of the constitution requires members of the State Executive Council to determine by two-thirds majority if the governor or Deputy Governor “is incapable of discharging the functions of his office”.
And if the State Executive Council comes to that conclusion, section 189 (b) provides for a medical panel to verify the decision after which the Speaker will cause the result of the medical panel, if it confirms, the Governor or Deputy Governor’s incapacitation, to be gazetted and the Governor ceases to hold office.
But then, can a State Executive Council appointed by the Chief Executive ever decide that he is incapacitated to rule no matter how true this is? The constitution certainly assumes that the Executive Council members are honourable persons and that their loyalty is first and foremost to the constitution and not the Chief Executive.
