Controversy over the Suntai’s photograph

THE photograph of the ailing governor of Taraba State, Danbaba Suntai, released through the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and used by frontline newspapers in Nigeria on Wednesday is generating controversies. 

 

Governor Suntai sustained injuries when a small plane he was piloting crashed near Yola Airport in Adamawa State on October 27, 2012. There were five other passengers in the plane at the time of the crash. 

Most Nigerians who called Nigerian Tribune to comment on the picture of Suntai with his wife, carrying one of his recently born twins, on the front pages of newspapers said they smell a rat.
The readers are of the view that all one needs is just to take a simple look at the picture to know that it is simply a fluke.

Some of the readers even likened the whole saga to the days of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

They argued that the release of the picture would be part of a scheme by his close aides to halt the handover of power to the state’s deputy governor.

Trying to interprete the picture, one of our readers wondered if Suntai did not have any external injury, as the Suntai in the picture  showed a blank looking person with a smooth skin.

“The blank look of a new father carrying a baby even suggests the brain-dead theory or how can you be carrying a bundle of joy and be looking blank?” the reader asks.

Suntai is currently at the Medical University of Hannover Hospital, Germany, a world-renowned centre for trauma management.

 A few weeks ago, Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State told a church congregation that Suntai was in bad shape, while insinuating that Christian governors were being targeted for elimination.

Meanwhile, most churches in Jalingo, the state capital dedicated several minutes to giving praises to God over the governor’s pictures.

At St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Mayogoi Jalingo, the congregation got excited when the presiding priest, Reverend Father James Vontih, broke the news that the said pictures of the governor were posted on Tuesday.

The story was not different at Unity Chapel in the Government House, Jalingo, when the congregation was informed by their minister, Pastor Ishaya Bambur, who presided over the New Year activities in the church.

Pastor Sqailer Maigoge led the congregation in rejoicing,  singing praises, saying the Lord has done something great to the people of Taraba State at the beginning  of 2013, as the picture of the ailing governor came handy with the new year.