Date Published: 04/22/10

PRESS STATEMENT

Stop this campagn of calumy against Rt. Hon. Peremobowei Ebebi

The Bayelsa Patriotic Professionals (BPP) is an organization formed by professionals of different socio-economic endeavour and field of studies made up of people of the Izon extraction in the Niger Delta.

As a think-tank, its aims and objective are to create and promote rational discourse among members.

* Evaluate programmes and policies of various governments in the Niger Delta with a view to ascertaining the impact of such policies on the Ijaw people in the region.

* Foster unity and peace among the people.

* Promote professional ethics in line with National and International standard.

* Encourage Local content by promoting indigenous professionals in the execution and     evaluation of projects in the region.

The political turf of our dear state Bayelsa has recently being heated up by political jobbers, through their clandestine activities to cast aspersions on innocent persons in their desperate bid to blackmail them.

As professionals we have observed with keen interest the blatant falsehood being fed the public by these desperadoes, who are acting the script handed to them by their pay masters with the inordinate intention to rubbish the good name of the Deputy-Governor, His Excellency Rt. Hon. Peremobwei Ebebi.

We know the ‘pipers who dictate the tune’ of these paid writers, and soonest they shall be unmasked because there is no where in the world where evil reins supreme over good for long. The antics of using the internet media clearly showed that their stock in trade is only aimed at pulling down the deputy-governor because of his rising political profile.

The Ukpaka report published on the net recently demonstrates where they are coming from, because the report is not only baseless but frivolous.

A cursory search of the EFCC Act 2000 as amended indicate clearly that public office holders who are covered by immunity as entrenched in the 1999 constitution section 308 can be investigated.

Interestingly, however, some former governors are being prosecuted by the EFCC for alleged crimes they committed while in office. We admonish those masquerade writers to put their petitions to anti-graft agencies for investigations, rather than selling phony lies to unsuspecting public.

For the avoidance of any doubt, it is notorious that deputy governors are mere spare tyres and any role assigned to them is at the whims and caprices of their principals.

The nocturnal writers and their pay masters know the goings-on in the state as virtually all entitlements accruing to the deputy governor have been stripped red off him by his principal the governor, His Excellency Chief Timipre Sylva may be for reasons best known to him.

For now, the deputy governor as at now has no office and operates from his private residence. On the said N150 million monthly overhead, the records are there for all to see that his office was also affected by the slash of overheads imp rest to ministries and parastatals for the past two years.  It is a notorious fact that the deputy governor since his assumption of office has never received N150 million as over head.

Our inquest revealed that the deputy governor’s office got N100 million monthly till 2009 January when it was slashed to N66 million and further reduced N30 million in April, 2009.

Further more, the slashing continued to N10 million before it was finally stopped in October, 2009 till date.

It is also a complete falsehood for the writers to state that the deputy governor collected N150 million for the months of April/May, 2008 when the Appeal court annulled the April, 2007 Governorship election that gave Chief Timipre Sylva victory.

On the allegations that the Deputy Governor collected N23 million without attending a peace conference in the United States of America . It is also a complete fallacy because he attended the said conference in company of some legislators’ i.e Hon. Johnson Alalibo, Newston and two others.

The deputy governor has not gone to Germany for any medical treatment, except in Apolo in Chenai in India . The Deputy Governor left the shores of Nigeria on March 17, 2009 and returned to the country between 26 th and 27 th March, 2009.  So that is also false and untrue.

We are also surprised that the internet author failed to mention that the Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva collects between N 1.2 Billion and N2 Billion as overhead every month. The author also fail to alert the reading public of the fact that the two ministries of Local Government and that of Sports that are under the supervision of the Deputy Governor’s office had been severed from his office for over two years now.

We admonish these clandestine writers and their co-travelers to desist from acts capable of causing bad blood and confusion in our peaceful polity, because nobody holds monopoly of smearing images of people.

We know their antics and agenda and we shall unravel them soon.

Bayelsans should stop over heating the polity and let us encourage ours in position to develop and improve on the aims and objectives of our founding fathers.

Kemesebi A. Joel                                                                           Theophilus Tonye Okuta

    President                                                                                           Secretary