Taraba lawmakers okay Suntai’s deputy as acting governor

FEARS over the vacuum created by the absence of the Taraba State Governor, Danbaba Suntai, following his hospitalisation in Germany after a plane crash may have been allayed as his deputy,

Garba Umar, was on Wednesday confirmed as the acting governor by the State House of Assembly.

In a matter of urgent public importance, the House’s Majority Leader, Charles Maijankai, spoke on the need to invoke Section 190 subsection 1 of the 1999 Constitution to allow the deputy governor to act in the capacity of   acting governor pending the governor’s return.

Backing the majority leader’s position, the Deputy Speaker, Abel Peter Diah, said, “the Taraba State House of Assembly is an institution saddled by the constitution of the country to make laws, hence the need to see us a people who respect the law”.

Though the governor and his three aides, according to Diah, were responding to treatment, there is the need to adhere to the constitutional provision by confirming the deputy governor as acting governor after the expiration of 21 days.

After the lawmakers’ resolution, the Speaker, Istifanus Haruna Gbana, mandated the clerk of the

House to immediately summon the deputy governor to resume duties.

Apart from the pressure mounted on the lawmakers to allow the deputy governor to act as governor, a pressure group under the umbrella of Safe Taraba Group had on Monday given a 24-hour ultimatum to the state government to make the governor’s health condition public or face protest.

The group also called on the House of Assembly to toe the path of justice by confirming the deputy governor as the acting governor after the expiration of the 21 days as provided by the constitution.