Chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State under the aegis of Bayelsa West APC Elders Caucus have asked Governor Duoye Diri to focus on governance and stop preoccupying himself over the personality of the party’s governorship candidate, Timipre Sylva.
The caucus was reacting to a supposed meeting on Wednesday between Diri and the minister of state for petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri, where they said Sylva’s political leadership dominated discourse during the state’s executive council meeting in Yenagoa.
The chairman, Chief Ebimene Tamarauemi, in a statement on behalf of the caucus, described the meeting as shameful to the Ijaw that is in dire need of industrial development.
He wondered why a meeting of the two leaders would ignore the federal government’s plan to revitalise oil and gas projects initiated by the Muhammadu Buhari administration in the state, particularly the Olobiri National Oil Museum at Ogbia, Brass Fertilizer and Petrochemical Company Limited and Brass Atlantic refinery both in Brass Island.
He also faulted Governor Diri’s claim that Sylva and those who supported the Okpoama-born politician in the last gubernatorial poll were sponsoring a violent protest against the state.
The APC chieftains said the governor’s utterances contradicted his precious position of building unity among people of the state.
They told the governor and the petroleum minister to focus on how pipe-borne water would be provided for residents in coastal communities that are often exposed to waterborne diseases and other health problems in Southern Ijaw, Ekeremor, Brass and other council areas of the state.
He added that epileptic power supply in the state, particularly the local government area of the minister that had been cut off from the national grid since 1996 when Bayelsa was created should be a serious concern to both Governor Diri and Senator Heineken Lokpobiri.
