Reports reaching us indicate that Taraba State has spent over $1.2 million (about N200 million) on medical treatment of Governor Danbaba Suntai, who was left with a brain injury in the October 2012 plane crash. Taraba has also spent millions on security votes to the injured Governor, estacode payments to him as well as members of Mr. Suntai’s inner circle, and transportation. According to investigations, the Governor's maintenance cost Taraba State almost half a billion naira.It will be recalled that Mr. Suntai was involved in a plane crash in October, 2012. A small plane he was piloting crashed near Yola Airport in Adamawa State. After a brief stay at the National Hospital, Abuja, the injured governor was flown to a hospital in Germany. He was later transferred to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the State of Maryland, the United States. After spending a few months there, he was admitted at a rehabilitation center for trauma patients in Staten ...Island, New York.
He was flown back to Nigeria on August 25, 2013.
Investigations by SaharaReporters reveal that funds spent on Mr. Suntai's treatment were not documented as formal expenditure by the state government.
Instead, the funds were either either directly channeled into the personal account of one Aliyu Umar, a US-based friend of Mr. Suntai, or handed to the governor's wife, Hauwa Suntai.
In addition to the medical payments, the governor and three of his aides who accompanied him abroad were paid nightly estacode payments (allowances paid to government officials traveling on official assignments outside the country). The brain-injured governor received about $1,500 per night, while his wife and other aides received $500 each every night for the 10 months that Mr. Suntai was abroad.
Mr. Suntai's associates, it was also learnt, demanded that the injured governor receives half of the security votes in the state with his former deputy, Garba Umar, the now-acting Governor of Taraba State.
Source:ncrmonline
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