Ever since the past days that the Taraba State Governor, Danbaba Suntai, returned to the country returning to duties has become quite a task against the run of expectation. This is because the State House of Assembly has not approved his request to resume office. Notwithstanding that, the Governor has gone ahead on Wednesday to sack his commissioners and other officials.
The Tuesday before, the Speaker of the House, Haruna Tsokwa, insisted that Suntai’s letter seeking approval to resume work after his medical treatment overseas would not be approved until he addressed the public in order to ascertain the state of his health.
The position of the Speaker was said to have angered the governor who as not been seen in public so far since his return thus allowing fears and suspicion over the sate of his health.
A statement on the dissolution of the state executive by the Senior Special Adviser to the governor on Media Matters, Sylvanus Giwa, directed the sacked commissioners and special advisers to hand over to their various Permanent Secretaries.
Others affected by the Governor’s purge include the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Garvey Yaweh and the Chief of Staff, Ahmed Yusuf.
Unlike the sacked commissioners who are yet to be replaced, a new SSG in the person of the former Commissioner for Justice and the Attorney General of the state, Gebon Timothy Kataps, was appointed while Alhaji Aminu Jika is to take the position of the Chief of Staff.
According to the statement, “Governor Suntai has dissolved the entire executive of the state and the special advisers.
“Governor Suntai has also approved the appointment of a new SSG in person of Gebon Timothy Kataps and Malam Aminu Jika as the new Chief of Staff.”
According to Giwa, the decision of the governor to do away with the commissioners and the special advisers as well as the SSG and the chief of staff, was to “re-strategise governance in the state.”
Before the dissolution, Kataps who was then the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General had told journalists that the Speaker and his colleagues had no constitutional backing to stop the governor from resuming office.
Citing section 190 sub-section 2 of the 1999 constitution as amended, Kataps noted that in as much as the letter to resume office had been transmitted to the House of Assembly by the governor, the members had no right to prevent him from performing his functions.
At the time this report was filed, it was learnt that the sacked officials were in a closed-door meeting with the governor.
It was also gathered that the non-intervention of both President Goodluck Jonathan and the national leadership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has not gone down well in certain quarters in view of the crisis in the state.
The Chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Hamidu Suleiman, was reported to have noted that the refusal of the Presidency and the leadership of the PDP to intervene “in the crisis that is fast consuming this state is unfair to us and Nigerians at large.”
