Stakeholders and elders in Taraba State’s Gassol 1 Constituency have urged the state governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku, to immediately respect the court order by suspending all actions on the creation of the Kwararafa chiefdom and the appointment of a new Chief of Kwararafa.
The governor, it should be noted, appointed a traditional ruler to preside over the affairs of the chiefdom last Friday, despite a court order prohibiting him from doing so.
The appointment, which did not go well with the people, was observed to have begun to incite tensions in the community at the time of filing this report.
To prevent people from taking the law into their own hands, stakeholders and elders of the community expressed their displeasure with the appointment at a press conference in Jalingo on Saturday, saying, “We not only view this appointment as a gross contempt of court, but an abuse of the rule of law and a mockery of the judicial process.”
They were disappointed that, despite the court order, Ishaku, who is about to leave office, “wants to leave us with another crisis.”
“Despite the court order, which we believed was served on the state government and the other defendants, we are shocked to hear that the state government flagrantly disobeyed the court order and went ahead to appoint one Methuselah E. Adamu as third class chief of Kwararafa on March 23, 2023,” the elders and stakeholders said through their spokesman, Hamman Tukur Kawu.
The presiding Judge, Justice D.N. Buba, ordered the governor to “desist from appointing, installing, recognizing, or coronating any person temporarily or permanently or otherwise as the substantive 3rd class chief of Kwararafa chiefdom” in his ruling.
The people of the community claimed that Gov Ishaku’s plans are aimed at sowing discontent among the people of the community, the council, and the state at large before stepping down in May.
They pleaded with the people of the community to distance themselves from acts that could jeopardize the community’s peace, while vowing to use all legitimate means to frustrate the governor’s “selfish aims.”
“We therefore take this opportunity to urge the state governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku, to respect the court’s order and suspend all actions on the creation of the Kwararafa Chiefdom and the appointment of a new Chief of Kwararafa,” they said.
