Why I Didn’t Visit Bayelsa Gov Over Flood Disaster

Minister of state for petroleum resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has offered reasons why he did not visit Bayelsa State governor Douye Diri during his recent two-day visit to the state to empathise with flood victims at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.

He also denied taking political campaigns to the IDPs’ camps, insisting that the outing to the camps were strictly on humanitarian grounds.

Sylva, who is also the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, said all efforts to reach out to the state governor and his protocol team failed, adding that the need to commiserate with the flood victims and the people of the state forced him to go ahead without an official visit to the State Government House.

In a statement issued through his special assistant on media and public affairs, Julius Bokoru, he said every attempt to visit the governor while in Yenagoa was truncated by his protocol team. He said the minister reached out to the Government House, informing them that there would be a courtesy call comprising of Senator Oluremi Tinubu, himself and other top government functionaries. He added that the functionaries at Government House responded in the affirmative and even gave a time for the meeting.

“When it was the day for the meeting, the aides of the minister couldn’t contact the aides of the governor. Curiously, virtually All lines from Government House were either switched off or ‘not reachable’. This aide and writer also made futile calls. Left with no choice, since there was a need to show respect to whom due, the convoy left for Government House with the hope that the initial agreement stood, but that was not to be, the convoy was stopped at the gate. As in the press already, a single, medium-level security operative explained to a puzzled Senator Mrs Oluremi Tinubu that the Governor just left for ‘flood inspection’ and other convenient reasons.