ONE state that has been on the political radar throughout the year is Bayelsa. Governor Timipre Sylva has been fighting to save his political career.
He has remained in the eye of the storm which is believed have been masterminded by his political opponents in Abuja. To them, Sylva’s much-desired return to the state’s number-one seat through next year’s governorship election will only fructify if they are politically dead and buried. They are men of grit and power. They dictate what happens in the party and polity. Therefore, they must be obeyed by all, including governors.
Far back before the 2007 elections, Sylva had got acquainted with the fact that politics in the part of the country is not for the lily-livered. Even after braing the odds in his own ‘family,’ the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he was soon to face a stiffer storm against his opponents. He did a grim political duel with Action Congress’s (AC) governorship flag-bearer, Ebitimi Amgbare, among others.
While after the poll Sylva was popping the champagne, Amgbare was belly-aching. Eventually, he not only kicked, he cried to the tribunal with the allegation that there was no governorship election in the state, alleging that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) merely allocated results to parties that participated in the elections.
The AC also accused INEC of conniving with the PDP to cook up results. The PDP and INEC denied the allegations and defended the results at the tribunal.
The state’s Elections Petition Tribunal looked into the complaints and ruled in Sylva’s favour. Not satisfied, Amgbare sought solace at the Appeal Court sitting in Port Harcourt. But it ordered a re-run election in the state. It held, and again, the PDP carried the day. Sylva was crowned the second time in one year as governor. The massive campaigns that characterised the preparations towards the April 2011 governorship elections in the state fizzled out.
Later, the ruling by the Federal High Court, Abuja, upheld the prayers of five governors including Sylva, thus ruling that their tenure ought to end 2012 when elections are expected to take place.
INEC headed for the Appeal Court, Abuja which also affirmed the ruling, before it later headed for the Supreme Court which is still at work. The ruling of the Federal High Court is now history as it turned back the hand of the clock of the heightened preparations for the governorship elections in Bayelsa State. Hence, the ongoing frenzied wait till 2012.
However, at the height of the campaigns, there were a few major political parties with serious governorship candidates. They included the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with Chief Timipre Sylva; the Labour Party (LP) with Mr. Timi Alaibe; the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) featuring Dr. Imorno Kubor; Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP); Mr. Ebitimi Amgbare; Change for Advocate Party (CAP) Chief Abel Ebifemowei and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) which features Chief Eberiye.
There were other parties, but the main ones that were so pronounced in the race were the PDP, LP and the ACN.
As the 2012 governorship election approaches in the state, serious but underground preparations have been in top gear among the governorship candidates in the various parties. But Sylva has remained their major headache. Reason: His acknowledged performance in the saddle.
Sylva once beat his chest that his administration’s developmental projects would speak for his performance at the 2012 elections.
And the pro-Sylva group also claimed: “There is no need for another primary in the PDP; the candidature of Governor Sylva is okay for the party because he has performed well.”
However, not many were shocked to the marrow when, recently, Sylva was curiously excluded from the PDP’s governorship primary. And insinuations were thick in the air that the political enmity between him and President Goodluck Jonathan has been his costliest undoing.
Now, he is still flexing muscles that he remains in the race, even in the same PDP, even if heaven will fall. Whatever happens between now and the next election, if it will hold, will determine whether or not the political whirlwind in the state will simmer down. But a poser remains unanswered by the PDP leadership: What is Sylva’s sin?
Constitution review
At long last, President Goodluck Jonathan, in September, set in motion, the process of tackling a major issue that had for long, kept the blood of most concerned Nigerians on the all-time boil. He constituted a 21-member panel to finally ‘panel-beat’ the nation’s generally adjudged wonky constitution.
By the decision, the panel is saddled with looking into the grey areas in the existing constitution and eventually making valuable recommendations to the National Assembly
The panel which has former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Muhammed Belgore as chairman, parades other tested names as members. They include: Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Babagana Kingibe, Prof. Oladipo Afolabi, Chief Ebenezer Babatope and Mr. Ledum Mittee, among others.
Urging the panel to work on the ‘settled’ areas of national discourse, Jonathan also told the panel members: “You must feel free to suggest fresh solutions to old problems, especially those that may have defied consensus in times past.”
Of course, keen followers of events in that country would agree that the decision to finally inaugurate the panel did not just come overnight. The human rights community and indeed, the progressives among the nation’s key political players had for long cried to the heavens, drawing attention to the various indices of imbalance in the nation’s constitution, warning that unless the vital document was reviewed, the nation’s unity and eventual prosperity would remain an illusion.
What turned out to be an attempt by the President to trouble a sleeping dog reared its ugly head when shortly after his assumption of office after the April election, he flew the kite of a seven-year single term for both the President and the governors.
The suggestion drew people’s ire from every nook and cranny of the land. Thus, anger and shock filled the air. To many, it should not have come from the President’s mouth, while to many others, it came at the wrong time.
“How could a President come up with that when unresolved issues like badly skewed revenue allocation formula, monstrous corruption, growing insecurity, festering disunity and all other manners of discontents are threatening the wholesomeness of the nation?” Nigerians had wondered.
Obviously, the noise that trailed the ‘presidential suggestion’ appeared a precursor to the decision to ex-ray the constitution to see if the ‘born again’ document that may arise from the effort after due consideration by the National Assembly will ensure the needful: Take Nigeria to the next level.