Taraba State Commissioner of Information, Honorable Emmanuel Bello, was in Abuja recently for the National Council on Information conference. He fielded questions from LOUIS ACHI and clarified some of the controversies surrounding the air crash involving his principal, Governor DambabaSuntai, the current status of the latter’s health, stating that the governor, who is now out of intensive care unit of a German hospital, will be back in the country and office soon.
Information management in the nation’s governance arena is perceived to have hit a critical low. You were in Abuja recently for the National Council on Information hosted by the Minister of Information Labran Maku. What were the key highlights of the meeting?
It is bringing together the issue of information management and the roles they play in good governance. Of recent, the information minister has been going round the country, checking out what the federal government is doing in the state. What the information managers are being told in this event is that there is a connection between good governance and good information management.
Because when you don’t inform the people about the good things the governments have been doing, there would be a disconnection between what governments are doing and the public perception and it is very important that you tie up the two ends together and ensure that what the public perceives is actually the true picture.
Now that can’t be achieved without enlisting the support of the machineries of information. Firstly, we’ll reappraise how to gather the information and secondly, how to disseminate the information. We are going to be looking at all these areas in our two days of meeting.
Recently your state Taraba was engulfed in a crisis following the air-crash of a plane piloted by Governor Suntai. Can you give us an update of the situation in Taraba now?
As a way of backtracking, let’s talk about the event itself that happened on October 25 which was on a Thursday. On that day, the governor and some of his aides were on their way to Yola and then they had the crash. The initial report was that they were dead. Some media reported that without even cross-checking their facts.
But eventually it was clear that they survived, which we understand was a miracle. It is indeed a miracle day for Taraba State for you to think that they all had a plane crash and now they are back with their family. The governor himself is doing very well.
Now about the governor himself; you have clarified that other aides involved in the crash are back to their families. There are media reports that the governor himself suffered brain damage and it’s all over the media. Can you please clarify the position of things?
It’s not true that he suffered a brain damage. In fact I would say that some of those reporters are brain damaged themselves. It was the online medium Sahara reporters that reported the governor was dead. And Sahara-Reporters did not even have the common decency to apologize to the world for passing out that kind of comment.
Eventually, maybe as a face-saving device, they down-graded this false report conspiracy theories and all sort of double-speak, to paint a scenario that is not there. One of their latest reports is where they claimed that the governor is brain- damaged.
They reported very unprofessional things like that the governor could not recognize faces, how? They erred the first time when they said the governor was dead then they had to reverse themselves. They are erring again by saying that the governor is brain-damaged. Like the first time, they were not on the ground to report what happened. They just depend on speculation, on conjectures to make a report.
Like the first time too, they are wrong on this count. In that same report, they were very wrong in saying that the governor could not meet the team of the Speaker Honourable Aminu Tambowal – when in fact the speaker was just there. They could have gotten even the number of the speaker to find out from him if he saw the governor.
Tambuwal did not just see the governor; they spoke, they greeted together. So this is a whole lot of ill-conceived and ill-devised kind of conclusions that are neither here or there. Just because they wanted to score a cheap point, they keep on saying things like that he could not meet his visitors. Meanwhile, there is no one who went to Germany, Hannover, where the hospital was located, to see the governor that did not see him. He greeted some of them, some of them prayed with him, some of them had discussions with him.
So more specifically what is the latest status of the governor right now?
Clearly he is not brain-damaged. He has been taken out of the intensive care unit and now he is recuperating in a private ward. In fact day before yesterday (a fortnight ago) when I called him his wife took the call and said I should give her a few minute because he had gone out to take a walk in the garden. So a man, who is standing by himself, means that he is healthy.
So Taraba State should be expecting their governor soon?
Honestly we should be having our governor back soon. The mood back in the state is that of expectation. In fact several local governments have put up bill boards of welcome home and all that. He is alive, he is kicking, and he is in his sane mind and his full intelligence so he is coming back to the state to continue his work.
In this unfolding saga, there are certain dimensions that are kicking in. There are speculations that the PDP is shopping for a replacement. Can you please clarify these?
Well that is really far from the truth. Because again, when Sahara-Reporters gave this report, just for the benefit of just knowing specifics, when the report came out, I called a top inside member of the PDP and told him this was what I heard – what has been said about PDP. He laughed it off and almost accused me of not knowing what I’m talking about, which is the fact that the PDP does not wade into state matters in that manner. It was not a party issue, in the sense that, what they were talking about was that the PDP was shopping for a replacement.
It is very ironic for anybody to say things like that, because the constitution is very clear on this matter; that whichever state that does not have a governor, would always have an acting governor in place. So it’s not as if Taraba State is not been governed, it’s been governed very well by an acting governor who is doing a fantastic job.
And the constitution is very clear on what to do in these matters and we are a law abiding state. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in the governor. That’s the way it should be. That was why after 21days, just like the constitution provided, the deputy governor was quickly mandated to take over.
So in this case, there was no question of the “doctrine of necessity” – as was conjured in the case of late President Yar’adua, a scenario that facilitated the transition of power to Jonathan?
No we can’t even draw parallels between our situation and the one you just mentioned. It was clear for us after 21days when the governor was not in, the deputy governor was made the acting governor. And it is not strange for Governor Suntai to do that even before the crash. Governor Suntai is known to follow the rules very well.
If he is going to be away for a long time, he entrusts his deputy governor to act. The deputy governor of Taraba State, was one of the most powerful deputy governors in the country; because of the power, the trust, because that is the way the governor behaves himself.
The governor believes in the rule of law, he believes that the right thing should be done. So it wasn’t something strange that Tarabans have not seen. But a lot of people made noise as if something horrible is going to happen. So there is no truth in the allegation that PDP is shopping for a replacement.
The governor is going to come back and continue as the governor of the state. He has not suffered any spinal cord injury that would make him incapacitated; terminal injury of the mind or body. Only that he has suffered some injury that are healing and that he is going to come back and continue his work.
Let’s take a message from you to the Tarabans and Nigerians at large, against the background of all the unfolding events?
For once, I want to say that I have never been prouder to be a Taraban than now. I saw what I have never seen before; Christians, Muslims, Animists, irrespective of their religion, came together and prayed for the governor. That is commendable. That makes me a proud Taraban. People from everywhere were calling to say that they are praying for us.
That they are really praying for us, both Christians and Muslims. And there are those who will tell you that they feel insulted by politicians who try to politicize this whole situation. They feel insulted, they feel bad. They say, look this man is in Germany recuperating why should we even try to politicize this issue. Matters of life and death are in the hands of God.
In the early days, the criticism were so much, why would he have to fly a plane, who is he. But eventually, that gave way to a much more mature kind of reasoning in the minds of Nigerians.
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