Former Governor Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa
State has furiously reacted to his
successor’s reaction to a demonstration
staged by pensioners to protest the state
government’s failure to pay billions of
naira in pension entitlements.
Current Bayelsa governor, Seriake
Dickson, had specifically blamed Mr. Sylva
for the state’s high and mounting pension
liabilities, adding that his predecessor had
not paid pensioners their benefits during
his four-year tenure as governor. Mr. Sylva
was the immediate predecessor to Mr.
Dickson, the handpicked choice of
President Goodluck Jonathan, himself a
former deputy governor and governor of
Bayelsa.
In a fiery press statement issued on his
behalf by an aide, Mr. Sylva, who has
been charged with massive corruption
during his term as governor, said he was
“sick and tired” of being blamed by Mr.
Dickson for what his spokesman called the
current governor’s “incompetence and
failure.”
Mr. Sylva also stated that he inherited
some unpaid pensions and gratuities from
Mr. Jonathan, adding that he went ahead
to pay down much of the obligations. He
questioned Mr. Dickson’s motives for
setting up a panel to probe the pension
crisis, calling on the incumbent governor
to resign.
Below is the text of Mr. Sylva’s statement:
At a so-called Transparency Briefing at
the weekend, newspaper reports quote
Dickson as claiming that the Bayelsa
State Government under Chief Timipre
Sylva never paid pensions to retirees for
five years. He claims further that his
administration inherited unpaid pension
arrears of over N4 billion. Consequently,
he would like to establish a Judicial
Commission of Inquiry to probe Sylva.
We are sick and tired of Dickson’s
governance style of always blaming Chief
Timipre Sylva for his incompetence and
failure. We call upon Dickson to resign
now since he has shown that the job for
which he was imposed on the people of
Bayelsa State is bigger than him. Failing
which the people of Bayelsa State should
exercise their civic duty to remove him
from office using all available
constitutional options.
Dickson’s claim about non-payment of
pensioners from May 2007- January 2012
is scandalous, petty and irresponsible.
This is clear for the following reasons:
1) When Sylva took over as Governor of
Bayelsa State from Dr Goodluck Jonathan,
there were outstanding pension and
gratuity arrears, and no noise was made
about it. As a leader, Sylva took
responsibility on the conviction that
government is a continuum. Pensioners
were paid along with people still in
service, promptly and monthly. Those who
retired from service at the time also
received their gratuity once the
appropriate documentations were done.
Not even Sylva’s opponents could accuse
him of non-payment of salaries and
pensions. By our records, the state
government paid an average of N216
million monthly and about N2.6 billion per
annum on pensions.
2) If nobody protested over non-payment
of pension for five years, it means
pensioners as well as labor in Bayelsa
were satisfied with the Sylva
administration.
3) Why is Dickson restricting his pension
probe to the period from 2007- 2012?
Why not commence from the beginning of
civilian rule in the state in 1999? Why the
obsession with Sylva?
4) Dickson has been in office since
February 2012. In April 2012, he set up a
kangaroo 11-person Financial
Management Review Committee headed
by Mr Ndutimi Alaibe to probe Sylva. Yet,
Dickson is only just realizing - in July 2013
– that pension funds were mismanaged
from 2007-2012.
5) Dickson says it has come to his
knowledge that the pension thieves in
Bayelsa State used the stolen funds to
build hotels and buy exotic cars. Meaning
that he already knows who these criminals
are. So, why set up a Judicial Commission
of Inquiry?
6) Dickson and his master at the top
have run out of options in the schizoid
attempt to ruin the political career of
Sylva hence the decision to set up this
Judicial Commission of Inquiry. By working
to the answer, they would like the
Commission to indict Sylva having failed
in their previous attempts with the Alaibe
Committee, and the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Under Dickson, Bayelsa State has suffered
a severe governance deficit. By all
indications, Dickson is interested only in
power and not the responsibility that goes
with the high office he was brought to
occupy. Having struggled to hide his lack
of capacity under the name of Sylva and
seen clearly that this strategy is no longer
workable, the only option left for Dickson
is to resign now.
May God help Bayelsa State.

k.