By Benjamin Awua, Jalingo
Leadership of the Taraba State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has vowed to explore necessary legal options that would compel the Taraba State governor, Darius Ishaku, to return home, if the Taraba House of Assembly failed to comply with the necessary constitutional provisions.
The party disclosed this at its state secretariat during a press confrence jointly addressed by the state APC chairman, Mr Ibrahim El-Sudi, and the APC governorship candidate in the last general elections, Prof. Muhammad Yahaya.
El-Sudi said Governor Ishaku has been out of the state for over 54 days, without transmitting power to his deputy, Haruna Manu.
The APC chairman said, “Section 190 subsection 1 requires the governor to transmit a letter to the state House of Assembly, informing them if he is going to stay out of the state for a long time.
“Subsection 2 states that in the event that the governor fails to do that, it beholds on the House of Assembly, by a simple resolution, to make the deputy to assume power in acting capacity until such a time when the governor would return and transmit a letter to the house that he was back and ready to resume his work as the governor.
“Unfortunately, the governor failed to do the needful and has been out of the state for 54 days now. The House has also failed to invoke the necessary constitutional provisions. We therefore, call on the House to urgently do this in the interest of the state.
“If the House fails to do this, we may have no choice but to explore legal options to compel the governor to come back to the state. He was elected as the Taraba State governor and it beholds on him to serve the people from the state, not from a remote area.
“Abuja or wherever else he is staying has their own leaders residing and ruling people from there and he shouldn’t go and erect another seat of power there while there is none in Taraba.”
But the governor’s Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mr Bala Dan Abu, insisted that the governor is not under any obligation to be in the state before he could discharge his duties as the state governor.
Bala had in the recent time told journalists that what was of paramount importance is the provision of dividends of democracy to the people which the governor is seen to be doing.
