A group of us interested in getting facts about Bayelsa State to the public recently set up the Peep Into Bayelsa website (www.peepintobayelsa.com). The website has a face book page with over 300 friends (after only 1 month). The face book page has been the venue of some interesting discussions on different topics including the performance of the Chief Timipre Sylva's (His Excellency) government in Bayelsa State. I have been silent during these discussion to enable me hear the people's opinions and I have been thinking a lot on some issues that were discussed. I have decided to air my perspective on this blog, since my perspective cannot be restricted to just a few lines in a comment.
I work with this Government, so some may automatically think I will not give an objective perspective on our performance, but just hear me out with an open mind, ...please.
From most of the "peepintobayelsa" facebook friends's opinions, it seems to me that their trust in our our Government needs to be re-anchored on firmer ground. I was priviledged to have worked on His Excellency's campaign team earlier on this year, just before the Court ruled that there will be no election in Bayelsa this year. Anyone that lives in Bayelsa would have experienced the gubernatorial campaign fever during that period. We, the campaign team, were every where. Since, my love for book no get part II, I was part of the research team responsible for a number of meetings His Excellency held with Bayelsans from various sectors. It was during this period that I learnt of the problems this Government faced the past years and understood the issues clearly. Some of these meetings were held with Bayelsan professionals that reside both inside and outside Bayelsa, Traditional rulers, Chiefs and leaders that represent all the communities in Bayelsa.
His Excellency, during these meeting explained the issues the Government faced over the past few years and elaborated on his plans for the upcoming years. Let me summarise some of his explanations below and perhaps, I will blog on his plans in subsequent posts.
This Government started with His Excellency wanting to empower more Bayelsans, so most of the projects were given to Bayelsan contractors. Most of these contractors collected the mobilisation money and abandoned the projects. When action was tried to be taken against some of them, His Excellency explained how he had emissaries, comprising elders in the communities, sent to him to appeal on their behalf- how can one easliy sue one's own brother in Africa? Planning for these projects had to commence again. The ironic consequence of His Excellency's decision to use Bayelsan contractors was that some of these "in default" contractors subsequently used their "project mobilisation monies" to contest for gubernatorial elections! One wonders what a Nigerian politician should do? Empower or not so empower? This will be an interesting topic to discuss on the peepintobayelsa face book page!
Let us not forget that the last few years witnessed an upsurge in militant activities in the State that held the country to ransome and necessitated the late President Yar' Adua to grant militants amnesty conditional on them dropping their arms. The country suffered a decline in oil income during these years, since production dropped and of course, oil producing States like Bayelsa suffered gross reduction in oil revenue. With a decline in oil revenue and investors' refusal to come into our State to work at generating internal revenue (for security reasons), things were rough for the Government. Cuts were inevitable and the reform process began with weeding out ghost workers and introducing due process in contracting projects to cut expenditure costs. Nobody likes cuts and reforms. Many were unhappy.
These meetings His Excellency held with professionals and leaders of communities were interactive (akin to town hall meetings) so the people asked questions and aired their minds. They were very interesting meetings indeed! I was the stenographer at some of these meetings, so I had to listen carefully. One observation I can make is that most of the participants at these meetings pointed accusing fingers at some members of His Excellency's cabinet (at that time) for some of the problems the State had experienced and expressed their misunderstanding at why His Excellency never changed his cabinet the past 3 years of his tenure. His Excellency believes in giving people a chance to prove themselves by allowing them control room. (I certainly cannot complain on this belief, as I need control room o!) He also believes in job security and continuity in government, hence he kept the same cabinet team most of the years of his tenure and only just dissolved the cabinet in June 2011 to reconstitute a new team.
The participants at these meetings- many of them were previously anti-government- left the meetings clearer on the State's issues and the steps being taken to address them. They advised His Excellency to host similar meetings frequently. I hope you are somewhat clearer as well. As I earlier said, on my next posts, I will blog on a few of the steps the Government has taken and is planning to take to sort out issues the State is facing and hopefully my readers and "peepintobayelsa" face book friends will understand the Government better and give us some more credit.
"Government and Governed need to walk hand in hand for our State's development, let us work together." Tonbofa Ashimi
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