On Tuesday February 7, 2012 the Supreme Court put a final lid on the long-running bid by former Bayelsa governor, Timipre Sylva to contest the last governorship election in the state. Though the final judgement was not given in the case, the court’s decision to adjourn --in a curious way--was a substantive decision in itself. Or how else does one interpret the Court’s decision that it will tell Sylva next April whether or not he can participate in a gubernatorial election that would have been concluded on February 11? It is therefore, the climax of the dogged battle for his political life–fruitless as it turned out to be. Indeed, for Sylva, what started out like a political career full of prospects may well be headed for an inelegant end, going by the turn of events, and many will readily attribute it to the plethora of needless fights with his state’s political leaders
In many states across the country, sitting governors are hardly on talking terms with their predecessors, most of who facilitated their emergence in the first place.This is even more pronounced in states where the previous and present governors belong to the same political party. Quarrels usually break out when former governors forget they have left the saddle and would want to breathe down the neck of the new men, especially on issues to do with money, government’s policy direction and allocation of political offices.However, it is a different story in Bayelsa as none of these was the bone of contention between Timipre Sylva and President Goodluck Jonathan whom he succeeded. Sylva never complained about any attempt to control him remotely from Abuja, yet for some inexplicable reasons Bayelsa is one state where the division was most pronounced. While there appears to be no substantial reasons why Sylva would not leverage the President for the benefit of the state, it rankles that the animosity between both men may have lasted for every day that he was at the helm in Creek Haven.
The unnecessary bickering invariably led him to clash with many of the President’s foot soldiers that abound in Bayelsa where he had served, first as deputy governor, then governor before assuming the position of Vice President, then President of the Federal Republic. It was an ugly scenario for Jonathan –coming from the home front –but it embarrassed other Bayelsans to no end. Needless to say, the quarrels with the president which were not founded on solid disagreements, turned into self-inflicted distractions which ultimately weighed in negatively on Sylva’s performance. Earlier this month at the inauguration of Mr. Seriake Dickson as PDP candidate for the February 11 governorship election in the state, the quarrel literally boiled over. The President had openly criticized Sylva’s attitude, saying it accounted for his poor performance while in office. Jonathan was obviously angry that after five years in office Sylva could not initiate meaningful projects for the state and also failed to complete the ones he met on ground. Rather than responding to the issues, Sylva had as usual descended to his crude mien, calling the President a liar.
From the beginning, Sylva had always been on the offensive. He had ruffled feathers among leaders of his party shortly after being sworn in in 2007 by unilaterally dismantling the Bayelsa state PDP structure he inherited from Jonathan on the suspicion that it would not be loyal to him. There was little basis for that suspicion from a man who was gifted—some say undeservedly -- with the state governorship ticket following the elevation of Jonathan from the state governorship to the nation’s Vice Presidency. The then VP must have felt humiliated therefore that his entreaties and those of other Bayelsa leaders were spurned. Such acts continued into the Yar’adua presidency; Sylva had related with the first family in a manner that denigrated his kinsman, and gave the wrong impression that he had no solid political support back home. Sylva would serially visit the nation’s seat of power without looking in to pay simple courtesies to the VP. In just one year, Sylva had so maligned notable leaders of the party in Bayelsa that the nullification of his election in 2008 presented an opportunity for Jonathan to take his pound of flesh. Not only did Jonathan forgive him this most discourteous attitude, he threw his weight behind him for the 2008 re-run elections, and prevailed on the others to give him a second chance. Many had criticized Jonathan as naïve, since he knew Sylva was an avowed traducer who had clearly barred his fangs.
As if these were not deep enough cuts, the struggle to install Jonathan as President following the long absence due to illness of Umaru Yar’adua was quite revealing. Not only did the former governor refuse to speak out courageously on behalf of his predecessor, he is believed to have been one of the major sponsors of the cabal that stood between Jonathan and the presidency. An issue was made of a governor who quartered a certain vocal member of the cabal at the state governor’s lodge in Abuja in the thick of the succession controversy.However, with the eventual resolution of the logjam and Jonathan’s ascension to the Presidency in May, 2010, a repentant Sylva had returned, aware that his second term ticket that would be determined less than 8 months away was seriously at risk. For the second time, however, Jonathan played the forgiving father and insisted that he would not block Sylva’s chances for re-election in 2011. Many Bayelsans were indeed confounded that he chose to repay those serial acts of effrontery with goodwill, and allowed Sylva an easy stroll to clinch the party’s governorship ticket early last year.
From every indication, Sylva would still have returned to his seat if not for his recklessness. With the PDP ticket in his kitty, he had returned to his cantankerous self, strangely believing that his second tenure was a settled issue, especially since the President who was battling for his own election would not be prepared to upset the apple-cart by taking him on. The governor who refused to appreciate Jonathan’s gestures of altruism would still go about making crude remarks and acting in a manner that was at best, impertinent towards the President, and boast that as the garrison commander in Bayelsa, he helds the key to the state’s politics. He was right, except that he did not reckon with the deep-seated anger of the people against him, and the fact that many were prepared to defy the President on the score of his candidature. For those Bayelsa leaders massed against him, the Supreme Court’s extension of his tenure and those of four other governors provided enough time and impetus for them to convince the President to dump Sylva who had clearly become a political liability. The rest, as they say, is history, especially with the recent election and eventual inauguration of Seriake Dickson as Bayelsa governor
Sylva’s fall into the depth of political irrelevance is therefore as predictable as it was self-inflicted. Whether or not he accepts it, his poor performance and style of leadership made his claim for a second term ticket clearly undeserving. Rather than reading the hand-writing on the wall he had claimed, in usual gawky manner, that the incident in which angry Bayelsans hurled stones at him was designed by opponents to embarrass him. As he commences his journey into the political wilderness, he will go down in history as a politician who consciously truncated his otherwise promising career. For a man who proved unable to choose his fights and regularly resorted to uncouth language and vulgarity, his tenure will linger –like a foul odour -- in the minds of Bayelsans.
