Samuel Oyadongha
21 August 2008
interview
SINCE his return to Creek Havens, Governor Timipre Sylva has been busy drawing up plans to provide basice infrastructure as well as dividends of democracy to the people of Bayelsa State.
But in this interview, he argues that it is expedient for the Federal Government to provide funds to the state as a way of alleviating poverty from the land. He further argues that Bayelsa State has not been a beneficiary of federal presence. Excerpts:
The journey so far
I am happy that you are all in Bayelsa State and you have seen that Bayelsa is not in a state of war. In fact, you have seen that Bayelsa is one of the most peaceful states but unfortunately we have a problem in this country and the problem is the way we report this country. And unfortunately, the way this country is being reported by our reporters always present us in a way we don't desire.
Militancy
Each time you hear about Bayelsa's analysis or some kind of story about militancy, that truly speaking, is coming to an end in this state. Since October last year we have not had any form of kidnap in this state. And of course we are engaging the militants; we have come to some kind of arrangement. Some of them are beginning to demobilise but these are things that should be highlighted instead of highlighting the bad news.
This government came in and one of the things we believe was that we needed to create prosperity; a united state and we needed to have a secured environment. So, the first thing we tackled was security with a lot of success. And right now, we have recorded a lot of achievements with the militants and right now, we are making a lot of progress.
Infrastructure
Then we decided that we are going to get all the contractors who have left site to come back and the contractors came back and started work. We thought the best thing to do in Bayelsa State was to create opportunities, so we gave out a lot of construction work which created a lot of jobs. We awarded contracts on 43 roads within Yenagoa. At the same time, we gave the contract for the construction of the road to Oporoma and of course the three senatorial roads, the road to Brass which is to be awarded and the road to Ekeremor which is ongoing.
In the area of education, what we want to do is to build three standard model secondary schools one in each senatorial district. We are actually concentrating on the secondary sector because we feel that the secondary school segment in Bayelsa constitutes the biggest problem. When we came in 2007, we recorded 13 per cent success at WAEC exams, which meant that 87 per cent of all those who sat for WAEC exams did not qualify to move up.
So you find out that you have a very viable pool from which the militants recruit their soldiers from. That is why we are concentrating on the secondary school system and I believe that in no time, we are going to create a viable society that will promote activities that will bring about wealth creation because we believe that the single most important thing in Bayelsa is to create wealth because poverty is one of the biggest issues we have, not only in Bayelsa, but Nigeria.
We believe that once we're able to achieve that, we would bring down the incidence of militancy and criminality naturally.
All these we have put together and we have very clear measurement parameters. In a few years, we believe that we will start to see results.
It's been two months since you came back as executive governor of Bayelsa Sate and the state executive council has not been constituted. Secondly, all these projects and development you mentioned did not reflect anything from the federal side; is there no federal presence here?
Well, the constitution does not give me any deadline or time frame within which to present the executive council. I decided to consult very widely to make sure that the people that we are to put on board are well intentioned and well positioned. Not to say that the people I had were not well intentioned but I want to make sure that we maximize the fresh opportunity.
For your information, I have submitted the list of commissioners to the Assembly. So, the ball is no longer in my court, it is in court of the Assembly. I am sure that they will soon invite the commissioners designate and interview them and clear them for me to swear them in.
On the issue of federal presence, there is a lot of federal presence, the oil companies are 60 per cent NNPC owned and they are all here. Talking about roads, we have a lot of problem with the federal presence here. We don't really have much of it and that is because of the terrain, I think.
We thought that the federal presence in a state is supposed to promote the development of a state but here in Bayelsa our experience is that the federal presence tends to take away from us rather than develop us because when federal parastatals come here, Bayelsa State will provide them accommodation, sometimes cars and office.
We are hoping that the federal government will come to our rescue. On the issue of roads, we are discussing with the federal government. I have been discussing with the honourable Minister of Transportation who happens to come from Bayelsa State and we are hoping that this season we are going to have some good federal presence but now I must tell you that federal presence in Bayelsa is less than desirable.
What efforts are you and your brother governors in the South-South making to pool resources together to harness the tourism potentials of the region especially as the sector is to be driven by good road network when viewed against the backdrop of the ailing East-West road?
You touched a very strong point in the East-West road; it is a road that is very close to the heart of very Niger Deltan because that is the road that touches almost all states in the Niger Delta area. The federal government has done well, unfortunately on this road, especially at this time, I am not in a position to blame the federal government because they have done everything and work was going on, you know what happened some two weeks ago.
If it is our desire as Niger Deltans, for us to bring development to our area, then why are our people going to tamper with people who are bringing development to us? The only reason why the road construction has stopped is because of the activities of some of these misguided elements, because anybody that goes to stop a construction of a road like that can only be misguided because this road is so important to us.
We are hoping that the construction will resume again. We are doing everything to make sure that Julius Berger gets back to site because that road is very important to the development of Bayelsa State.
Before you went on the judicial leave, the hope of the people of Bayelsa was that you were coming to effect real change and indeed you came and the signs were all there. On the financial profile of the state you told us at inception that you met a very buoyant profile. But somewhere along the line we started hearing rumours of your administration taking huge loans.
Today, if you ask the average Bayelsan about his or her thinking about your administration they will tell you they are not sure because of this loan. In this circumstance, how would you reassure the people of the state by telling them the financial position of the state and what the people should expect from your administration now that you are back.
I am sure that you are not speaking for Bayelsans because I take polls myself. You cannot tell me if you ask the average man on the street, they will tell you they are not sure, if you are not sure you can say it and I am going to tell you the whole story. I have nothing to hide. We must learn what financial engineering means, the way to actually increase wealth is by liberalising, and that is the word that is all over the world now.
In fact, in financial management, you should even be happy that I made some future financial commitment because that is the only way to become prudent in management. Because by future commitment what you have done is to reduce your head room for liquidity which means that you have already committed.
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