Re: Indiscriminate use of protest as an act of coercion and intimidation agains Governor Timipre Sylva

Re: Indiscriminate use of protest as an act of coercion and intimidation agains Governor Timipre Sylva

Evil men only triumph when good men keep quite in the face of tyranny and intimidation.

The Bayelsa State True Democrats Forum will not be browbeaten nor intimidated by sycophantic hirelings of the Bayelsa State Government to suppress the democratic liberty of Bayelsans to demand accountability and good governance from their Governor.

Bayelsans will not be silent while brazen thievery of their resources is being perpetuated by those put in trust of their commonwealth. Bayelsans will use all legal and democratic means like peaceful and lawfully assembled protest to draw attention of the general public and in particular the relevant publics to the plight of Bayelsa State in the hands of Governor Timipre Sylva, a young man who was invested with so much political capital but to the dismay and shame of all including his kinsmen has betrayed their collective trust and offered absolutely nothing in return in terms of good governance and infrastructural development other than rhetoric’s, a full band of dull and sycophantic blind loyalists and speeches of mere intentions that has not translated into any physical development or improvement in the lives of ordinary Bayelsans.

Other than Governor Timipre Sylva and his acolytes, Bayelsans are unanimous that governance has ceased in Bayelsa State and the government of Bayelsa State could at best be described as having failed in all ramifications and indices.

The issues of divergence between Governor Timipre Sylva and the good people of Bayelsa State bothers on the continuous looting of the State’s treasury by Governor Sylva with the aid of his officials using all manners of strategy including but not limited to awarding of phoney and over bloated contracts, primitive stealing out rightly from the treasury, defrauding the State through spurious and self serving policies, mortgaging the future of the State through the collection of loans running into Billions of Naira and raping the youths of Bayelsa State of their dignity.

The issues we want Governor Timipre Sylva and his National Transparency Initiative cohort to answers are:

Did Governor Timipre Sylva declare ownership of the following properties in his Code of Conduct Bureau asset declaration form?

Residential Properties situate at (a) No. 12 Studdridge Street on Sea SWI with title number MX674738; (b) No. 60A Chobert Road, Peckham Rye, SE15 with title number MGS398290; (c) No.5 Wilchendom Road Fulham, SW6.

Exotic cars: (a) Mercedes 500CLK with Registration No. H446XLP; (b) Bently Continental GT, Rollsroyce Phantom, Mercedes Benz Maybach.

Bank Accounts: (a) Sort 80-24-43 BIC: NWBKGBSL with a current balance of £3,687,864.35; (b) Abbey National Instant Saver Account No. H4688466HW with a current balance of £651,873.84; (c) Barclays Bank Account No.0041-86943, Sort 20-62-42, with a current balance of £14,702,812.64.

A Yacht worth over 4 billion naira currently berthed in a Maltese port.

Did Governor Sylva connive with his commissioner of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to divert local government funds?

Has Governor Timipre Sylva been awarding all furnishing related contracts to companies operated by people fronting for his wife?

Were Bayelsa students humiliated in Norway or not and why were they sent home abruptly?

Can Governor Timipre Sylva account forN80 Billion so far received from the Excess Crude account?

Did Governor Timipre Sylva award a N800 Million contract to a company owned by his erstwhile political adviser for the clearing of the Central Business District and another N500 Million sand filling contract for which no job has been done and full contract value paid?

Did Governor Timipre Sylva in connivance with his Finance Commissioner under declare the February and March 2010 allocation?

These are some of the issues we want Governor Timipre Sylva and the National Transparency Initiative to answers in the spirit of accountability and transparency. Not promoting innuendoes of coercion and intimidation.

Governor Timipre Sylva cannot stop or wish away the right of Bayelsans from lawfully protesting, marching and appealing to governmental institutions to salvage our State from the massive looting and rape it is currently witnessing. No matter how much Governor Timipre Sylva feels about these marches and protest they will continue until he gives answers to the many cases and instances of corruption levelled against him and his appointed officials.

Bayelsa State True Democrats Forum recognizes the fact that Governor Timipre currently enjoys immunity from prosecution, but that immunity doses not prevent him from being investigated as we are confident that someday at the cessation of his being governor he will have his day in court to defend himself. But as patriots it is our duty to blow the whistle on corruption while the anti-corruptions institutions investigate and prosecute. We are waiting to see if members of the National Transparency Initiative will join Governor Timipre Sylva in the court of law to defend him, when he is eventually arraigned for monumental charges of corrupt enrichment and outright fraud.

To prove that National Transparency Initiative is a bunch of uninformed paid publicists with no stake in Bayelsa State, they contend that “The Sylva administration has embarked on opening the State through new road network construction. The creeks in Bayelsa State have become construction sites with infrastructural development”

By referring to the creeks as centres of development, they have attempted to pre-empt the outcome of the planned tour of journalists and civil society groups to inspect and audit the “much touted” development projects embarked upon by Timipre Sylva administration, because there are no project presently going on in Yenagoa, the State Capital, and they will claim the creeks are dangerous for journalists and civil society groups to go to by sponsoring some ill informed militants to make threatening statements.

By their publication, Timipre Sylva’s National Transparency Initiative, has subtly informed Nigeria’s that all Sylva’s development projects are concentrated in the creeks that are not safe for independent assessment. We posit that this assertion is a lie and is consistent with the fraud that Sylva’s administration is.

There are no significant projects going on in Bayelsa State either in the upland or in the creeks at this moment to justify the huge allocation the State government has received and the massive loans Governor Sylva has collected.

The only project of significance that ought to have fundamentally impacted on the lives of the people of Bayelsa State, socially and economically is the senatorial road that links Yenagoa-Ogbia-Nembe-Brass to Okpoama, Governor Sylva’s home town has been abandoned by Governor Sylva. This road was originally financed by Shell and NDDC, but because of the volume of the project and the cost, the then government of Bayelsa State under Governors D. S.P. Alamieyeseiha /Goodluck Jonathan got involved in the project and work progressed to the stage of clearing the road from Yenagoa to Brass. Since Governor Sylva took over in 2007 to date, that road that would have opened up the State and promoted commerce significantly has been abandoned, that mangrove trees have now grown over the road and yet the National Transparency Initiative, would love Bayelsa State True Democrats to keep quiet while they feed Nigerians with tales of monumental lies.

Bayelsa State True Democrats Forum does not wish to engage Governor Timipre Sylva in a war of proxies. In our struggle to save Bayelsa State from the vultures in its government, the True Democrats Forum will be pleased to engage Governor Timipre Sylva sponsored amorphous National Transparency Initiative to a two round public debate on AIT Network and Channels TV,where the public will be the judges as we debate on true situation of governance in Bayelsa State. In that debate we will put a lie to all the spurious claims of the Bayelsa State government and expose to the world with proof of evidence the kleptomaniac character and banditry orientation of the Timipre Sylva Administration.

Nigerians and Bayelsans should take notice that the National Transparency Initiative is an amorphous and faceless group that operates from the Bayelsa State Government house and financed with Bayelsa State’s funds. The characters that signed the publication under reference are not known and hardly exist, if they are, we pray that they will take up our challenge to a public debate to defend the development stride of Governor Sylva that they are alluding to. If they do not exist in person but are paper creations as we know, then we pray that the Bayelsa State government sends some of its best publicists, preferably its acting information commissioner/overseer of the information ministry or the governors chief press secretary to the public debate which we have called for to defend the so called evidence “that Bayelsans have recorded great transformation in the administration of Governor Timipre Sylva”