A group, Bayelsa Democratic Front (BDF), has criticised the Bayelsa State governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, for allegedly sponsoring publications in the media aimed at causing tension in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
In a statement issued on Monday in Yenagoa, the President-General of BDF, Chief Promise Okpoebi, said the publications were a failed attempt by a nervous Dickson to truncate a political tsunami that is set to sweep him out of office.
The statement said, “In the latest of these publications, the APC leader in the state, Chief Timipre Sylva, was alleged to have made a deal with former Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr. Timi Alaibe, who recently joined APC, to concede the party’s governorship ticket to the latter in return for N5 billion compensation and a ministerial nomination.
“The report also alleged that Sylva was offered the right to nominate Alaibe’s deputy and five commissioners in his cabinet if he wins the election, and that Alaibe also offered to use his contacts to ensure discontinuation of the case against Sylva at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
“These postulations are not only false, they are flagrantly out of sync with reality.
“To start with, even the most laidback of citizens in Bayelsa State and, indeed, Nigeria today know that Alaibe is not in a position to nominate Sylva as a minister under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
“As leader of APC in Bayelsa State and a national leader of the party, Sylva had only recently led other party stakeholders to receive Alaibe and many other prominent indigenes of the state into APC. It is only laughable for anyone to reason that Alaibe would suddenly be the one recommending Sylva to the president.
“Besides, Sylva has not yet told anyone he wants to contest the governorship election.
“On the N5 billion compensation allegation, we wonder where Alaibe would get such a huge sum of money, particularly, at this era of anti-corruption campaign under Buhari. Will he send it by cash, bank transfer or cheque?”
Regarding the allegation that Alaibe had offered to weigh in, using his links with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Sylva’s case before the EFCC, the BDF stated, “We are not aware that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has become the chairman of EFCC or the authority to which EFCC reports.
“We know Sylva is having his day in court, but he has left no one in doubt about his ability to prove his innocence in the charges levelled against him. Dickson should make no mistake about it; he will have his own day in court when he loses the governorship – as all indications point to – and his immunity on 14 February 2016. He should not think that Bayelsans would take the huge corruption going on under his watch lying down.”
BDF said the publications had also tried to false portray Obasanjo as sponsoring certain candidates in the Bayelsa State governorship poll.
“These are all lies that cannot sway Bayelsans from their resolve to change the four-year-old anguish under Dickson. Having being rejected by Bayelsans and even his most trusted allies in a historic effort to change the lot of the state, Dickson is trying every trick in the book to try to truncate the course of a political tsunami set to sweep him away from the governorship seat. But he cannot successfully swim against the tide.”
BDF said, “As a sitting governor, Dickson should learn to campaign on his record and leave APC out of his political frustrations.
“Dickson knows that he is exercising a mandate founded on a lie. He has since 2012 been living a lie, and now at his wits’ end, he is on a mission to hoodwink the public to see how he can curry some sympathy. This unattainable mission is the apparent motivation for these false publications.
“But the Bayelsa and, indeed, Nigerian publics are too enlightened about happenings in the state to fall to the deceit sponsored by Dickson. They are well aware of how in 2011 a governorship mandate was stolen from the people by mandarins sponsored from Abuja and given to Dickson to exercise.
“They also know how Dickson has spent the better part of his tenure fighting the ghost of those from whom his governorship mandate had been stolen. The people know that the current publications are an attempt to rewrite history.”
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