BAYELSA 2023; Bury Your Governorship Ambition, Group Tells Sylva

A socio-political group, Bayelsa Progressive Democrats (BPD) has advised the former Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva to bury his governorship ambition, saying he has no business with Bayelsa government house.

The group says it is an insult on the collective sensibility of the people of the state for the former minister to contemplate returning to lead the state as governor, accusing him of lacking the moral ground to ask Bayelsans to hire him as their governor.

In a statement on Sunday, the National Director General of the BPD, Chief Bestland Oroyi noted that people of the state have nothing to point to as the achievement of Sylva during his administration for five years as governor of the state, wondering what he would tell the electorate as APC candidate to run for the number one office in the state.

“We find it laughable and indeed an insult taken too far on the general sensibility of the good people of Bayelsa that a former governor, Timipre Sylva who cannot point to one project he started and completed is jostling to return to government house.

“For the records, we will advise the minister to bury any intention to lead the state because he has nothing to fall back to as basis for which the people should hire him. He presided over poverty, insecurity, killings and brigandage in Bayelsa State in a scale never seen before.

“One cannot point at a single road he constructed during his administration, rather the state recorded mind-boggling profligacy, economic downturn, infrastructural decay and division in a scale never seen before.

“Is he coming to take us back to the locust days? We will not allow that. We dare ask the former minister the impact of his office as the minister of state for petroleum resources on the livelihood of Bayelsans. Who has he empowered or what has he attracted to make the lives of our people better rather than self-aggrandisement.

“Little wonder he has been staunchly rejected in his paternal community, Basambiri in Nembe. His violent behaviour and propensity to unleash mayhem, and sometimes eliminate is something we can no longer permit in our dear state. His kinsmen and the entire Chiefs of Basambiri of opu Nembe have rejected him as well”.

It also accused the minister of overseeing the worst petroleum scarcity in recent Nigerian history, which saw queues surface across the country almost on weekly basis, maintaining that he should have been sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari long ago for performance.

The group accused him of advancing the shenanigans surrounding the volume of daily consumption of petroleum product in the country which it says has remained a mystery through which public treasury is looted under the guise of paying an overbloated consumption volume.

According to the press release, the former Governor is a known drug addict within his circle who has underlying health conditions that will prevent him from performing if elected.

It said the current governor, Douye Diri has demonstrated empathy, administrative dexterity and mastery of his job which has brought peace, development and progress in the state, stating that the people of the state are not ready to change a performing government to uncertainty.