You are afraid of your own shadow!, Sylva fires at Gov Dickson
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Says PDP candidate is ‘Bush Man’
Former Governor Timpre Sylva hits Governor Seriake Dickson in the
battle for Bayelsa State. The governorship election in the state holds
only six days away. Sylva, the candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) in the poll, says Dickson, flying the flag of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), will fall at the election. The APC candidate
spoke in an interview. Excerpts:
There is the question being asked by many, including your opponent,
and that is, what did you forget in the Government House since 2011
when
the court annulled your tenure?
Anybody that asks that question is ignorant. I left Bayelsa State
Government House unwillingly and all Bayelsans know the circumstances
under which I left, and, since then, no other opportunity has presented
itself for me to re-contest for that office. This is the first
opportunity and so I don’t know why anybody will ask me if I forgot
anything. Actually, the event of 2012 should be fresh in the mind of
every well-meaning Bayelsan. I was disqualified by the powers, that-be
from contesting an office I was occupying at that time. Most
well-meaning Bayelsans think this is the time for God’s justice and
justice being done by bringing me back and that’s why you see this
overwhelming support. I didn’t forget anything in Bayelsa State
Government House but government, as far as we are concerned, is occupied
by a usurper who came and used federal might. Today, when they shout
about federal might?. Look at Yenagoa; do you see army check point?
Now, take your mind back to the election in 2012, we had over a hundred
check points in Bayelsa, manned by fierce-looking soldiers. The
Government House was blocked with an armoured personnel carrier, APC,
and, of course, military helicopters were flying over Bayelsa. Now,
nothing of such is happening and yet they still scream because they are
scared of their own shadows. The people of Bayelsa would have given
me a second tenure if I had been allowed to contest but I was barred
from re-contesting that election. Today, those people who barred me from
contesting that election are no longer in office; so the Bayelsa people
have the opportunity of choosing their rightful leader and that is why I
have presented myself.
Your party, the APC, dislodged your brother, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan,
from the presidency; don’t you think this might affect your chances at
the poll?
I don’t think this will have any impact on the election. Every Ijaw
man should be fair to me and the APC. The former President set the scene
for his exit from office by bringing war to his home. He started the
fire and he didn’t start the fire in any other place, he started it from
home. After I was removed from office, I went on exile and, when I
came back, I was arrested many times. They never left me alone, they
wanted to kill me, they wanted to jail me, they wanted to do everything
to me. I was visited by elders from different parts of the country and
the question on the lips of all those elders was, ‘do you not have
elders in Bayelsa State who can intervene between yourself and the
President?’ And I had no answer to give them. Now, I was pushed to the
wall, I was pushed out of PDP. I didn’t leave PDP, I was pushed out and
they were very joyful about it. Now, I saw an opportunity to find a roof
over my head in the APC and the Lord crowned our effort. Now, the
former President is history. If he had brought everybody together, I
mean put his own house together, Amaechi (former Rivers governor)
wouldn’t have left probably, I would not have left probably. In 2011, we
all supported him but, unfortunately, he himself and those who were
around him felt we were no longer needed. Jonathan lost the election
and the people of Bayelsa must move on.
So, well-meaning Bayelsans need to look my way and, I think, many
Bayelsans know this and that’s why they are already looking my way. And
that is why we are definitely going to win the December 5 election.
What informed the choice of your deputy, because people say he is
over 70 years. Is it because you want a man who is not ambitious?
Change means so many things to different people but, to me, there is
only one definition of change. Change, to me, means a different way of
doing things. Stupidity is defined as doing the same thing and expecting
to get a different result. We must begin to do things differently if we
expect a different result. What informed my choice of a deputy was the
fact that if I carried on with the same ticket as I had before, then it
will amount to doing things the same way. I am 51 years old and I
thought I need an older person with experience to be a counter balance.
That is why I chose this very experienced retired school teacher. He is
also a very good Christian.
Your opponent, the incumbent governor, has said that the election is
not going to be about him or you, but about the people of Ijaw which
cast your candidature as anti-Ijaw interest. How do you react?
In a way, I agree with the governor that the election is not about me
or about him, but it is about Bayelsans and about the Ijaw people. But
when you take it further, you can see the state of mind of the man we
are talking about. He is confused. I had said that none of APC or PDP
is an Ijaw party, they are national parties. What can he do for the Ijaw
nation on his own? What can he possibly or what can Bayelsa, on its
own, do for the Ijaw nation? Nothing. The person who loves Ijaw people
must take Bayelsa to the centre and this is what is going to improve the
lot of Bayelsa people. So, if we are talking of Ijaw patriot, I
consider myself one and, I think, today, that some well-meaning Ijaw
people are quite happy with me because they believe that without me,
there would have been no link with the centre, there would have been no
bridge-builder.
So, I think that, on the contrary, the APC is the patriotic party and I am the patriotic one. And I think the Ijaw people should embrace the APC because this is our time to really get to the centre, we have to live in this same country, whether our president lost the election or not. It is not the Ijaw people that lost the election because Ijaw people did not contest election. I saw the PDP and the PDP presidential candidate, who was an Ijaw son, but he lost and we have to carry on in this state, we have to carry on in this country.
So, I think that, on the contrary, the APC is the patriotic party and I am the patriotic one. And I think the Ijaw people should embrace the APC because this is our time to really get to the centre, we have to live in this same country, whether our president lost the election or not. It is not the Ijaw people that lost the election because Ijaw people did not contest election. I saw the PDP and the PDP presidential candidate, who was an Ijaw son, but he lost and we have to carry on in this state, we have to carry on in this country.
Let us go back to the era when you were governor. There is the
insinuation that you did not perform and left a lot of abandoned
projects, including the airport project. What do you say?
That, to me, is the continuation of my opponent’s frustration and
paranoid. When I came into government, there were a lot of ongoing
projects, and I did not call them abandoned projects. Every government
starts a project and if it doesn’t finish such project, the incoming
government finishes it. Banquet hall was one such project, it was
started by Alamieyeseigha. I completed it. The treasury building was
another I completed. The judiciary building, the library, I completed
them. The way I left office, nobody would have thought I would have
completed all those projects because I left in the middle of my tenure. I
wasn’t given time to complete the projects. When Dickson leaves now, he
will leave a lot of projects also uncompleted. Does it mean I will
consider them abandoned projects because he did not complete them? He
has abandoned his own projects now, which is the real meaning of
abandoned projects. All the hospitals he has been building have been
abandoned. He has abandoned the Isaac Boro Road; he is the one that is
abandoning his own projects. Now if you ask me about the Musa Yar’ Adua
Airport, I sited that airport there because I felt it is viable
economically in that spot. When I did the feasibility study, we found
out that spot was equal distance from Port-Harcourt and to Warri. So we
felt an airport like that will be very useful to our people and
people outside our state like Patani, Ughelli and Ahoada, and thus
boast economic activities.
Governor Dickson says you are a ‘guy-man’ and that the income of the
state does not need a ‘guy-man’; and another thing is the issue of debts
from Alamieyeseigha to Jonathan down to you. Can you tell Bayelsans how
much did you inherite, how much did you owe, how much did you leave
behind when you left office?
I wonder what Dickson means by a ‘guy man’ but I think I am a typical
Bayelsan. Dickson is just a disgrace to himself and I don’t know what
he meant by ‘guy man’, but everybody knows Dickson is a bushman. That
is why he doesn’t have that self confidence, that is why he calls me
‘guy man’. He is ‘country-man’ and I am ‘guy man’. You also raised the
issue of debt burden. I really wish he could be truthful. Unfortunately
people are full of lies.
The figures are there. I inherited debts from Jonathan. Now, what we
did was to service those debts. I took 50 billion naira bond because we
felt that if we serviced the loans alone to commercial banks, it was
costing us a lot. And then we took part of the bond to pay contractors
handling Brass Road and the Melford Okilo Hospital. The bond was
structured in such a way that it was a long term; so it could be easier
for government to pay the interest. We were able to put all the loans
that we inherited into that bond.
I will never lie to Bayelsans. I had a commercial loan stock of N20
billion which I was hoping to finish paying by May that year and I would
have finish paying it if I, was there by then. Now, the government of
Jonathan was owing contractors N111 billion and, by the time I was
leaving, debts to contractors were about N207 billion. I inherited a
debt of N111 billion and what Dickson inherited from me was N207 billion
contractors’ debts. In my first year in government, I received N99
billion from the Federation Account. The first year Dickson came, he
received N191 billion. Second year I received N154 billion, Dickson
received N215 billion. The third year I received N106 billion, Dickson
received N156 billion. So what is he talking about? Now, he is taxing
civil servants which I did not do. He has got more to deploy for
development but has he done so? Now, he says he has been paying
N20billion commercial loan from 2012 till now? Bayelsans should take
note of this, Dickson has borrowed more money than any government. Do
you know that those transparency buildings I built from the money we
received from the EFCC have been given out as collateral to banks to
borrow money?
The PDP has continued to accuse you of using the security outfit,
Famotangbe, to maim and kill innocent Bayelsans during your tenure.
I have always challenged the Dickson government, if they make that
claim, to show me a name, half a name or two of Bayelsans that were
killed by Famotangbe.
Famotangbe was a security outfit; Dickson himself realizes that there
was the need for a specialized outfit. The decision to establish the
security outfit was taken in a security council meeting because we need
to set up a specialized outfit to combat the rising wave of crime,
especially coming at the time after militancy.
So we decided to set up a security outfit in collaboration with the police.
That outfit was overseen by Pererich, my security adviser, but under
the police. If any crime was committed by Famotangbe, Pererich is now
working with Governor Dickson and so I challenge him to arrest Pererich
if or probably order for my arrest. Those are just sweeping comments
made by a drowning man. As far as Dickson is concerned, it is just the
name that is the problem and the name was not my suggestion.