Suntai, here is a simpler way
House of Assembly awarded gratis to the Acting Governor, Garba Umar UTC. I unequivocally support Oga Suntai in his struggle to reclaim his chair. Who wouldn’t do the same in his position? He didn’t go through the hilly and riverine terrain of Taraba State seeking for votes only to lose the prized governor’s desk on […]
House of Assembly awarded gratis to the Acting Governor, Garba Umar UTC. I unequivocally support Oga Suntai in his struggle to reclaim his chair. Who wouldn’t do the same in his position? He didn’t go through the hilly and riverine terrain of Taraba State seeking for votes only to lose the prized governor’s desk on the altar of a plane crash and an Assembly resolution.
Governor Suntai has transmitted a letter to the Speaker announcing that he is back in Nigeria and is fit and ready to resume his duties. Never mind all those cynics who were saying that he didn’t “return to Nigeria” but was “carried into Nigeria” on some aides’ shoulders. We should ignore all those who are saying that Oga Suntai was declared fit at Abuja airport not by a doctor of medicine but by a doctor of geography who cannot tell a Columbus cloud from a white cloud. The only relevant issue now is, has Taraba Assembly Speaker Tsokwa got the right under the Constitution to refuse a letter that was transmitted to him by Suntai? This is the matter that the High Court in Jalingo is trying to decide, and it has just adjourned the suit to September 19 for mention. My worry, as a full-fledged backer of Governor Suntai, is the amount of time that it could take for the Jalingo High Court to deliver a ruling in this matter. Even after the High Court rules, some mischief makers could drag this matter to the Appeal and even Supreme Courts. It means Oga Suntai could be waiting in the wings for many months while his gubernatorial tenure steadily slips away.
That is why I have a very friendly advice that I wish to extend to my beloved governor, Danbaba Suntai. Why are you wasting precious time pursuing this matter in the courts? There is a very simple, very fast, very straight way to resolve this matter outside the courts. Since Speaker Tsokwa’s only reason for rejecting the letter that you transmitted to him is his suspicion that you did not write it yourself, here is what you should do. Tomorrow morning, enter your Dornier plane and fly down to the Assembly Complex. As an expert pilot, land in the Speaker’s parking lot and saunter in when all 24 members of the Assembly are seated. Walk over to the Speaker’s desk, pull out a piece of foolscap paper and a red biro and proceed to write a letter to Tsokwa in the full view of all the members. As soon as you finish, hand it over to him, hand to hand. The gavel will bang, the siren will blow and you will walk out of there as a full Governor. Straight into your waiting plane and off to Yola…
Head or tail, defence minister loses
I do not think it is fair when the holder of a particular office is punished whether or not he or she succeeds in a given assignment. It looks like the fate of this country’s Defence Minister is sealed when the Army performs poorly on the battlefield. The office holder’s fate is also sealed when the Army performs well on the battlefield.
Last year, Defence Minister Dr Bello Haliru Mohamed was sacked in a minor Cabinet shake up alongside National Security Adviser General Patrick Azazi, now deceased. No one shed tears for the two men because that was at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency and everyone felt that the two men should take responsibility for the security agencies’ failure to reign in the insurgents. Mrs Olusola Obada then took over the Defence Ministry. Some chauvinistic Nigerians inwardly grumbled that the president took a risk by putting a woman in charge of soldiers in wartime. Such people were however silenced when the military under Mrs Obada succeeded in routing Boko Haram by bringing down the level of violence by 90%. What did Mrs Obada get as reward? The sack…