In the African society we sprouted from, there are laid-down standards that not even modernity or Westernisation has managed to totally expunge from the value system. These will forever be cherished – and more often than not rewarded. They include hardwork, honesty and sacrifice and fear of
I have closely been observing the happenings in Bayelsa, the state that aptly calls itself ‘The Glory of all Lands,’ and followed all, the decampments and cross-carpeting, the claims and counter-claims being laid by each of the two leading political parties as the December 5 scheduled gubernatorial election in that state continues to inch closer.
And I thought I have a solution – a major recommendation to the people of Bayelsa – which is that since propaganda is not the exclusive preserve of any individual or political party, they should disregard all the figures being bandied about and rely on two things that are as constant as a northern star: achievements of both Timipre Sylva (the former governor) and Seriake Dickson (the incumbent) as well as the pedigree of both candidates, to decide on who to vote for. Bayelsans owe this responsibility to their conscience and to generations yet to come.
I believe this is the best way the people of that state shall remove every speck placed by politicians in their eyes and correctly take their destinies in their own hands. Governance is no tea party. A wrong choice can set that promising state many years back, and the people will have none but themselves to blame if, God forbid, they allow that to happen.
And what are those achievements? As an executive member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, I know that when earlier in the year we sent out notice to all members informing them that this year’s All Nigeria Editors Conference was going to take place in Yenagoa, many of them, especially from the North, readily told us they were not attending. The reason? They feared for their lives.
But knowing the situation on ground, we convinced many of them to attend the conference. And they did. And I can report that at 2am on the day of arrival, I ventured out with the President of the Guild, Malam Garba Deen Muhammad, to pay a welcome visit to our members scattered in different hotels in the city. We went round the city for two hours without any police escort, two of us and an unarmed driver, and nobody harassed us in the slightest. Some of us have visited the state when Sylva was the governor, and we know that not even he can venture out at that time of the night because kidnappings, armed robbery and many other vices were the order of the day. Sylva’s administration between 2007 and 2011 set up a security outfit named Famou Tangbe which was reportedly used to turn the state to a killing field. And I was surprised that same Sylva could appear on AIT Focus Nigeria recently to agree that there were killings at the time but passed the buck to the head of the outfit even when the buck clearly stopped at his desk! Is this not leadership deficit?
Within Sylva’s APC, there are very influential figures that are witnesses to the man’s proclivity for violence. If in doubt, ask Governor Adams Oshiomole, who was almost killed by Sylva’s protégés when he was assigned by the party to organize the APC governorship primaries in the Samson Siasia Stadium in Yenagoa. Since that clash, the spate of violence, crimes and kidnappings have increased in the state because I heard that all the bad boys who had been chased away by the Dickson administration have returned to deliver Sylva at the polls using violence.
A second example is access to Nembe, the home local government of Sylva. The man ruled for four years and seven months, and throughout that period, he did nothing to help the security quagmire bedeviling the people. Poor market women were finding it almost impossible to go about their normal lives because criminals had taken over the waterways. Since he does not hail from Nembe, Dickson, on coming to power, would have looked the other way and left the people to their fate. But the responsible leader that he is, he built a high-quality road that has tremendously transformed economic activities in the area and thereby empower the people without giving them small amounts of money, like beggars, as was the case before him. Today, people, including Sylva can now travel to his home on land.
The other issues, I feel should shape the voting patterns of Bayelsans on December 5 are: track record of selfless service and pedigree of each of the two front runners, and Dickson to me towers above Sylva in these indices.
Sylva is being accused of shortchanging the Bayelsans by appropriating billions of naira of state resources to himself. The EFCC has been foot-dragging on the matter because the man is seen as being very close to President Muhammadu Buhari, incidentally a man of unimpeachable integrity. How a man with such excess baggage had managed to become gubernatorial candidate of a party led by one of the most decent Nigerians, is a contradiction that has defied logic, and which is not lost on all people of integrity. But no one with shadowy past shall deceive the people to vote for him just because he happens to belong to the same political party as the President.
In contrast, when Governor Dickson became governor on February 14, 2012, he made it clear that the days of enrichment without labour and funding the greed and avarice of a few at the expense of development of the Bayelsans were over. Many others could of course make similar statements to deceive the people. But in the case of Dickson, he brought about a paradigm shift in governance by sponsoring and signing into law, the Transparency and Accountability bill which makes it mandatory to render accounts of all revenues accruing to the state and how they are spent in a town hall with the Bayelsans. Failure to carry out this briefing in three months becomes a misconduct which attracts impeachment! We members of the Guild of Editors were privileged to witness the one of August because it coincided with our conference.
Governor Dickson matched his transparency and accountability mantra with decisive prudence, so much so that the enemies of the people named him Araldite, someone who doesn’t part away with money anyhow. And this is what they are now using to blackmail the man by falsely telling the people that a vote for Dickson is a vote for poverty. But what did they give the Bayelsans when they held sway as governor? Mere crumbs, laced with a few uncompleted white elephant projects executed at heartlessly-exorbitant cost to make a show of working for the people. Sylva is also reputed to have mortgaged the future of Bayelsans through mind-boggling loans running into N432 billions with nothing to show for it, for which Dickson’s government has reportedly paid back N423billion.
In whatever part of Bayelsa one lives in, there is no way he or she cannot benefit and utilize a Dickson project or service in everyday life. These unprecedented achievements, encapsulated in a well-defined strategic-vision document and roadmap entitled Restoration Agenda, is aimed at entirely-transforming the state and empowering its people. What further endeared me to Dickson is that under his watch, education is free and compulsory, there is a social security scheme for the aged, an audacious fly over and massive infrastructural and tourism strides which as the governor puts, it has taken Bayelsa to the world and brought the world to Bayelsa.
A vote for Seriake Dickson will only consolidate on that and permanently instill a culture of accountability, decency and transparency that will ensure that never again, will anyone shortchange the people just because he has perfected falsehood, blackmail and name-dropping to an art. This, therefore, is not a contest between PDP and APC. It must be seen as a contest between the truth and falsehood. It should therefore be Dickson all the way. And Buhari, being the moralist we all know him to be has no reason, aside from politics, supporting anybody in the governorship contest, other than the incumbent governor.
*Gaya wrote from Wuse Zone 7, Abuja.
