Bayelsa’s N4 billion Pension Liability: Sylva Indicts Jonathan, Urges Dickson To Resign

Posted: July 23, 2013 

Gov. Seriake Dickson

By SaharaReporters, New York

Former Governor Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa State has furiously reacted to his successor’s reaction to a demonstration staged by pensioners to protest the state government’s failure to pay billions of naira in pension entitlements.
Current Bayelsa governor, Seriake Dickson, had specifically blamed Mr. Sylva for the state’s high and mounting pension liabilities, adding that his predecessor had not paid pensioners their benefits during his four-year tenure as governor. Mr. Sylva was the immediate predecessor to Mr. Dickson, the handpicked choice of President Goodluck Jonathan, himself a former deputy governor and governor of Bayelsa.
In a fiery press statement issued on his behalf by an aide, Mr. Sylva, who has been charged with massive corruption during his term as governor, said he was “sick and tired” of being blamed by Mr. Dickson for what his spokesman called the current governor’s “incompetence and failure.”
Mr. Sylva also stated that he inherited some unpaid pensions and gratuities from Mr. Jonathan, adding that he went ahead to pay down much of the obligations. He questioned Mr. Dickson’s motives for setting up a panel to probe the pension crisis, calling on the incumbent governor to resign.
Below is the text of Mr. Sylva’s statement:
At a so-called Transparency Briefing at the weekend, newspaper reports quote Dickson as claiming that the Bayelsa State Government under Chief Timipre Sylva never paid pensions to retirees for five years. He claims further that his administration inherited unpaid pension arrears of over N4 billion. Consequently, he would like to establish a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to probe Sylva.

We are sick and tired of Dickson’s governance style of always blaming Chief Timipre Sylva for his incompetence and failure. We call upon Dickson to resign now since he has shown that the job for which he was imposed on the people of Bayelsa State is bigger than him. Failing which the people of Bayelsa State should exercise their civic duty to remove him from office using all available constitutional options.

Dickson’s claim about non-payment of pensioners from May 2007- January 2012 is scandalous, petty and irresponsible. This is clear for the following reasons:
 
1)   When Sylva took over as Governor of Bayelsa State from Dr Goodluck Jonathan, there were outstanding pension and gratuity arrears, and no noise was made about it. As a leader, Sylva took responsibility on the conviction that government is a continuum.  Pensioners were paid along with people still in service, promptly and monthly. Those who retired from service at the time also received their gratuity once the appropriate documentations were done. Not even Sylva’s opponents could accuse him of non-payment of salaries and pensions. By our records, the state government paid an average of N216 million monthly and about N2.6 billion per annum on pensions.
2)   If nobody protested over non-payment of pension for five years, it means pensioners as well as labor in Bayelsa were satisfied with the Sylva administration.
3)   Why is Dickson restricting his pension probe to the period from 2007- 2012? Why not commence from the beginning of civilian rule in the state in 1999? Why the obsession with Sylva?
4)   Dickson has been in office since February 2012. In April 2012, he set up a kangaroo 11-person Financial Management Review Committee headed by Mr Ndutimi Alaibe to probe Sylva. Yet, Dickson is only just realizing - in July 2013 – that pension funds were mismanaged from 2007-2012.
5)   Dickson says it has come to his knowledge that the pension thieves in Bayelsa State used the stolen funds to build hotels and buy exotic cars. Meaning that he already knows who these criminals are. So, why set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry?
6)    Dickson and his master at the top have run out of options in the schizoid attempt to ruin the political career of Sylva hence the decision to set up this Judicial Commission of Inquiry. By working to the answer, they would like the Commission to indict Sylva having failed in their previous attempts with the Alaibe Committee, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Under Dickson, Bayelsa State has suffered a severe governance deficit. By all indications, Dickson is interested only in power and not the responsibility that goes with the high office he was brought to occupy. Having struggled to hide his lack of capacity under the name of Sylva and seen clearly that this strategy is no longer workable, the only option left for Dickson is to resign now.
May God help Bayelsa State.