Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson and former Governor Timipre Sylva on Friday threw tantrums at each other over bloody violence in the state especially at the oil-rich Twon Brass, Brass Local Government Area.
Dickson in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Public Affairs, Mr. Daniel Alabrah, blamed continual bloody clashes, which caused deaths and injuries in Brass on the only All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker in the House of Assembly, Isreal Sunny-Goli.
The governor directed the security agencies in the state to arrest and prosecute the legislator, who represents Brass Constituency 1.
Dickson warned that if Sunny-Goli was not arrested and prosecuted by the law enforcement agencies, he would personally mobilise the people of the state to apprehend him.
The governor alleged that the police authorities and the Department of State Services (DSS) failed to arrest the lawmaker because he belonged to the APC despite the plethora of petitions against him.
He accused the lawmaker of being responsible for various crimes including murder, thuggery and cultism in his constituency and the whole of Brass Local Government Area of the state.
He alleged that Sunny-Goli was one of the kingpins of cultism in the state responsible for several unresolved murders.
He said: โSunny-Goli is a criminal and a fugitive, who is running away from the law. He is responsible for several deaths in the state and runs to Abuja to seek refuge. The police authorities cannot continue to condone acts of criminality simply because Sunny-Goli (also known as Adi) is a member of the APC. The law must not be applied selectively.
โThe position of the Bayelsa State Government is that Sunny-Goli has to be arrested. We are asking the IG and the DSS to take steps to prevent an abuse of their powers by someone who terrorises innocent people.
โI will mobilise the people of this state to arrest him since the law enforcement agencies cannot do it. As governor of this state, I do not and will not condone criminal acts by any individual no matter his position in the state. I have a zero tolerance for criminality and lawlessness.โ
He also expressed shock that President Muhammadu Buhari could allow former Governor Timipre Sylva, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri and other APC leaders to cause mayhem in the state despite several reports and complaints to him and security agencies.
He added: โThe President has allowed common criminals and terrorists such as Sylva and Lokpobiri to unleash violence on their people while the IG is sitting in Abuja to direct investigation of a petition against the Brass Council chairman.
โAt the moment, they are attacking innocent people in Brass, who are members of the PDP, with people bloodied and houses burnt all in a bid to destabilise the state.โ
The governor alleged that Sunny-Goli had several pending cases before the police and the DSS for which he was invited but that he shunned the invitation.
He said the lawmaker sought protection in Abuja from where he wrote a frivolous petition that resulted in Thursdayโs invasion of the homes of the interim chairman of the Brass council, Victor Isaiah, and that of the former chairman of the APC in the state, Chief Timipa Tiwei Orunimighe, who recently defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He insisted that Isaiah who was invited by the police would honour the invitation when the security agencies act on the earlier petitions against the lawmaker that was being protected by the agencies.
The governor accused the APC leaders in the state, including Sylva and Lokpobiri, of using the security agencies to shield criminals, intimidate and harass innocent citizens.
But in a swift reaction, Sylva in a statement signed by his Media Assistant, Julius Bokoru, asked Dickson to leave him and other APC members out of his incompetence and shortcomings.
The statement said Dickson in his warped imagination had continued to accuse Sylva of violence without any concrete evidence.
โWhat puzzles Sylva most is not how deeply untrue and infantile Dicksonโs statements are, but the fact that Dickson may have finally developed a complex problem over Sylva, a complex borne out of Dicksonโs awareness that he is a classless opportunist who will never measure up intellectually, socially and morally to Sylva.
โIf Dickson saw it fit to spend even a third of the energies he spends obsessing over Sylva on the task of governance before him, the state would have been better for it.
Dickson can simply be described as a grand patron of criminality in Bayelsa state.
โHe has turned the state Government House into a shelter for all people of questionable characters chased out of the APC . These are Mr. Perekeme Kpodo who is currently standing trial for rape, Timipa Orunimighe and Africanus ukparasia.
โWhile the APC and its leaders in the state are purging criminals out of its fold , Dickson and his lowly government welcome and celebrate them as he is building an army of criminally-minded elements to unleash terror on members of APC in the state.
โThis can be confirmed in his statement when he threatened to take the law into his hands by mobilizing his people to arrest Hon Israel Sunny-Goli . The question is who are his people that he wants to mobilize? The guess easily becomes his private army of criminals whom he also sent to resist the arrest of Mr. Victor Isiah who is wanted for multiple murders and brigandageโ, he said.
The statement further alleged that Dickson had penchant for violence adding that the governor was hypocritical with primordial capacity for brute mischief.
The statement added: โLest we forget, on March 30th 2015, Dickson personally led a gang of thugs to attack a Federal High court in Yenagoa, an act which was caught on camera and extensively circulated on the media.
โThat unabashed show of violence scored a new low for the office of the Governor Of Bayelsa State. Even as governor, his instinctive appetite for violence could not keep him from personally partaking in that assault against lawyers and judges of a Federal High Court.
โIt is also on record how security operatives loyal to Dickson killed over eleven natives of Amassoma who were only protesting the arbitrary sack of thousands of Bayelsa state workers whose only crime was to be thought apologetic to the APC.
โOn February 29th 2016, on the instruction of Governor Dickson, thugs were unleashed on elderly pensioners protesting their five months pay in front of Government House.
โReducing octogenarians, who should be revered, to pulp is another unbelievable low. Ours was supposed to be a society where elders are venerated, but Dicksonโs orgy of violence is not a respecter of revered conventionsโ.
The statement further said that under Dickson, politicians including members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been assassinated.
It said: โThe case of those killed in Brass is a murder case and not a political case.The fact Dickson is desperately trying to cast a political theme on what is a clear cut murder case is another affirmation that we have a man morbidly interested in death and disaster, a man clearly oblivious of the value of human lives.
โIt beats oneโs imagination that a man who claims to have a legal background would feel panicked by the police going about its simple procedures of investigating a string of murders. Or have we now completely lost our morality that series of murders in the state should go unresolved? However ghastly politics might be, loss of human lives can never be explained away on its alters.
โDickson who has set Bayelsa state on reverse for the last six years with gross incompetence, mediocrity and innate naivety should own up to his glaring inadequacies instead of depleting state resources in fighting imaginary enemiesโ.
