By Chuks Ehirim Assistant Editor, North
Allegations of financial sleaze are swirling around the All Progressives Congress (APC), casting a smear on the resolve of President Muhammadu Buhari to stamp out corruption, which critics already knock as partisan.
Bayelsa APC Chairman, Timipa Orunimighe, pointed right at Buhari’s cabinet and alleged that Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobori, paid “a huge sum of money” to get the slot, allegedly from former Governor Timipre Sylva.
APC rattled
A rattled APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Timi Frank, asked the leadership to suspend and investigate Sylva, adding: “I am going to conduct my own investigation” and “I’m going to officially write to the president” to intervene.
If Lokpobori did pay bribe to get the job, he will be asked to resign, Frank pledged.
Sylva levelled his own bribe allegation against Orunimighe, saying, “he has been collecting money from [Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake] Dickson,” a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Demand for Lokpobiri’s resignation
Nonetheless, Orunimighe also alleged at the APC national secretariat, Abuja that Sylva compiled a list of non party members and submitted it to the Secretary to the Government of Federation (SGF), David Lawal, for consideration as members of boards of government agencies without the knowledge of state party leaders.
Orunimighe led other Bayelsa APC executive members to Abuja to protest to the national leadership and called on Lokpobiri “to resign his appointment.”
He said the “reason” for him to resign is that “he paid for the slot of his ministerial position and I also believe and those of us standing here know very well that he is not a member of the party.
“Why we are standing here before you today is because of the appointments that we feel were supposed to be given to those of us of the APC in Bayelsa.
“It is a pity to say that somebody like Timipre Sylva who was supposed to be the leader of the party, today turns against the party and sold our party slots for whatever he feels may be money or whatever he feels that our party slots can be sold for.
“As APC chairman in Bayelsa and very strong exco, we have spoken with him, we told him we will stand against that as a people.
“If we can stand against [Goodluck] Jonathan as president, if we can stand against the Governor of Bayelsa State, Sarieke Dickson, to tell him we don’t like his antecedents as governor, we can also tell our leader that we don’t like his antecedents.
“We are not ready as a people to sell any slot of appointment to be given to Bayelsans.
“Some of us have been arrested before for what we believe in. We have being to cell for what we believed in and we will stand also to defend what we have believed in.”
Orunimighe urged Buhari and APC national leaders “to be aware that … we will not accept this, but we are not into war with anybody; we want a very peaceful atmosphere where we can dialogue and bring quality and qualified Bayelsa APC members to serve in those places the government would deem fit for Bayelsa.”
Sylva fires back
However, Sylva came up with his own bribe allegation against Orunimighe and dismissed him and other state APC leaders as agents of the PDP.
His words: “They felt that they are the ones that started the party and therefore we should not deal with anybody who is coming late into the party.
“When the ministerial slot came, [Orunimighe] told me he wanted to be a minister and he is not qualified to be a minister.
“His only experience in Nigeria is that he has been a local government chairman and I made him local government chairman. He was local government chairman under me.
“That is his only experience in life and he said he wants to be a minister and I told him, you can’t be a minister because this is a serious government.
“I also told them that the people who are joining us, we need to give them a sense of belonging and so, Heineken was nominated.
“We also looked at the spread in the state. I was recontesting for governor from the Bayelsa East, [Orunimighe] is from the Bayelsa Central and Heineken is from the Bayelsa West.
“So, I felt we should take somebody from the West to be minister and Heineken became minister. Heineken was minister in November 2015 or so. Why is it that it is today that [Orunimighe] remembers?
“Why didn’t he make that noise then? After we lost election [in Bayelsa], this same person has gone ahead to take money from Dickson. I was told and [I have] confronted him.
“He has been collecting money from Dickson and I didn’t want to start problem in the party because I felt that we have entered it already. But he thinks this is the only way to destabilise the party and I don’t think he will succeed.
“That is the problem, but it is not an issue. It is a complete non issue.”
APC admits embarrassment
Despite Sylva’s explanation and counter allegation, however, APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Timi Frank, asked the leadership to suspend Sylva while investigation is carried out.
Frank said this is necessary in order to prove to the public the integrity of the Buhari administration.
He reiterated that both the APC and Buhari are credible, and that the party would not allow anybody to ruin the image of the president or wreck the party.
He said: “I am going to conduct my own investigation. I am going to brief Nigerians from time to time on this issue and I am also going to call on the security agencies to get involved.
“I have seen the response of … Sylva but as far as I am concerned, he has not responded to the allegation.
“If truly … Lokpobori paid for his appointment, then I will be asking him to resign from his position.
“Up till this minute, I have not seen a reaction or response from him to confirm … whether he paid for or earned his position because he is a friend of Timipre Sylva or because he was truly a party man.
“But again [Orunimighe] made it very clear that [Lokpbobiri] doesn’t have the registration or the membership card of our party.
“So if Lokpobiri is not a member of our party, then he again has a case to answer. We have people who have worked for this party, how come you never recommended any party leader that has worked from Bayelsa to become minister?”
Frank described the allegations against Sylva as embarrassment to the APC government, saying, “I’m waiting for the president to come back [from his foreign trip].
“I’m going to officially write to the president that he must give an audience to the leadership of APC in Bayelsa, to give them the opportunity to come and talk to him, to present their evidence against [Sylva] that truly political offices in Bayelsa today are being sold for money.”
Stay off scam, Frank warns Lawal
Frank urged Lawal not to compromise his position, warning that his involvement in the alleged scam might spell doom for the party.
“I want to … call on the SGF to tread carefully with anything that belongs to Bayelsa because today, Bayelsans have tied [him] to Timipre Sylva because they are friends; they are the best of friends.
“So I’m passing this as a warning to the SGF because each time things like these come up, we know that he’s the person that is in charge, he should not use friendship to compromise his position as SGF.
“The whole Nigeria, the world knows that the SGF and Timipre Sylva are the best of friends. We will resist from today any name that comes from Sylva. We will protest it, we will take every step to make sure that it will not stand.”
