The Comedy of Suntai’s Return

The Comedy of Suntai’s Return

With

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

10/09/2013

The biggest event that permeates the front banner of the national gossip is the debacle in Taraba State. Last year October 25, 2012, Governor Danbaba Danfulani Suntai met his fate of flight accident which led to his illness. As human beings, nobody is willing to accept the inevitable. Death. But fortunate enough to Governor Suntai for he did not die instantly, taken back to history as did his associate who was along with him when the crash occurred. To this end, he was taken to off abroad to practice the best of all medication on earth.

Since his departure, about a year ago, no credible updates was reaching the public about his health condition as though he was not a high public profile figure because some people barricaded any access to him in fear of revealing the veracity about him to the public. Only that people knew was that he was abroad seeking medication. This is not just the matter, for since his exit, some influential cabal kept busy assiduously and fervently, struggling to take advantage of his illness to manipulate the control of the state resources from the background, a vague scene, for their own benefit. Their crave for power shows them naked, how avaricious they are towards the state resources for instead of concentrating their pure concern on his health condition, they deploy it  on how to make their own way to the resources to reap the benefit.

The news of his return to the country last August 2013, stirred the political atmosphere and generated a heated argument. The entire country stood spectator to witness the return of the ailing player into the arena. But the charade arrangement of his return proved failure, a comedy and embarrassment to the schemers when he emerged from the plane flanked with handlers aiding him descend the stairs. A damning proof that he is yet capable. On the scene he was seen to display some of these features: blank gaze or empty stare, sudden outburst of speech or disjointed speech, tied-tongness, loss of cognitive sense (permanent or temporary loss of memory), repetition of a word or statement etc., which are all attributed by psychologists and psychoanalysts as Post Traumatic Brain Injury (PTBI). Think of it twice, how we expect a person who fails to control himself could to a State bearing tens and thousand of inhabitants. As if this is not enough for them to take lesson, the cabal behind the ploy took pretex under his impression to issue the signatory of dissolving the State Executive Council.

All these disgusting things unfolding in Taraba State, before our eyes like a farce drama, have backing sipirit of some officials in the presidency. Instead of leaving the constitution to reign, those nefarious people have narrowed their civilization so low as to revert to avoid the dictum of the rule of law they swore to protect and abide by. They should know that, if they are ignorant, it’s incivility to change the rule at the middle of the game.  The presidency supposed not to take side, supposed not temper with the constitution, supposed not to forget that it was the same constitutional provision during a similar case in Yar’adu’s regime that guaranteed its supremacy to confirm the incumbent president his position when some powerful few tried so hard to hijack the regime to dupe the country. These powerful few tilting to the Suntai’s side have lost their conscience and without regard to our intelligence, want to prevail their interest above that of the teeming populace of Taraba State which is in concord with the State constitution. Here we are!

We are not saying that the good people of Taraba State do not love their governor or have now turned against him. No!, what we are saying is that they are on the safe ground for they are the same people who initially, out of support, cast their vote for him. And what if the people changed their mind? To me those people should let Suntai a rest for if they are hankering for power, he had already written his name in the Guinness Book of political record for being once a governor, a prerogative of few among many.  And the Taraba people wouldn’t be chastised when they have arrived at a reasonable and justifiable conclusion that Suntai is incapable of continuing as a Chief Executive.

In a very civilized way and formal manner the Taraba State Assembly called things to order when the demanded Governor Suntai to appear in flesh before the House to prove his capability by addressing the Legislature. When he failed to show off, a realization that, even the signatory was a purported one, he was not fully recovered capable enough of continuing as a Chief Executive. The legislatures allowed him a decent and dignified exit to go and recuperate from his illness. The Taraba State Assembly have shown itself men of conscience and, we hope they would continue to prove honourable if they adhere to the constitutional provision to allow whoever he is, the deputy, without prejudice or distinction as to the tribe or religion, to take charge of the State affairs as conferred by the constitution.