Insecurity Swept Timipre Sylva Out Of Office....

I was in my Port Harcourt office when I heard a call. It was a distress call, a call of a man in agony and pains from one elder Ockiya. Ockiya is a big, highly respected family in Nembe. The man narrated how his 22 year old son who just gained admission to read Petrochemical Engineering in UNIPORT was arrested, tortured, tied up-side-down and shot. The caller was at Boro Park, Port Harcourt.

Without wasting time, my PA and I went to see him and he handed over the picture of the deceased boy to us. They were two picture: one –when he was alive and the second when he was lying cold in FMC morgue. After receiving the pictures, I wrote a letter to the then Commissioner of Police about a proposed one million-man march. I had contacted other activists to investigate other extra-judicial murders and published the letter in INDEPENDENT MONITOR AND THE BEACON too. Reports indicated that Operation Famou Tangbei had killed more than 78 youths, the most prominent were one ThankGod Michael, 26 from Opoolo and Karina Frank-Oputu at Imbgi Road. The man was a plant operator at Gilly Helena Hotel and was accused of stealing N1, 000.00. Famou Tangbei was called in and at once he beaten to death. All these extra-judicial murders took place in September, 2011. Some of these extra-judicial murders were documented and at least six persons are in court with

ex-Governor Timipre Sylva. Why civil society chased Governor Sylva out of office was not because he was stealing but because he was killing innocent youths and promoting cultism and criminality in the State. Insecurity actually swept Ex-Governor Timipre Sylva out of office.

ONE of the lowest points of the immediate past administration is the gross misuse of the security outfit nicknamed Operation Famou-Tangbe OFT. Not only was OFT used as an instrument of political repression and intimidation; it was used as a killer machine like the Gestapo under the Third Reich. OFT members acted as debt collectors, arbiters in matrimonial issues, settlers of land disputes and other civil and domestic issues that have no bearing on security, etc. Officially, it is estimated that the sum of N150 Million was spent monthly to maintain the Operation Famou Tangbei, the fact that OFT never took directives from the Police Command show that its operations are sinister and illegal. The Plant Manager at Gilly-Helena Hotel Late Mr. Karina Frank-Oputu - was beaten to death by OFT operatives, Freddie Philip Ockiya, 22 was arrested and shot by the same OFT and another ThankGod Michael, 26, was abbreviated by OFT operatives. All these murders occurred

in September, 2011. At the last count, Civil Society recorded 78 deaths. It was like the Nazi holocaust in that sleepy town-Auschwitz in Poland. The spate of killing was uncontrollable because it was internally engineered. The helmsman never cared because like Hitler, he relished taking a cocktail of banned substances.

The international Community, especially the Amnesty International was at the point of blacklisting Nigeria before the disbandment of the outfit. Closely allied to the aforementioned is the fact that Timipre Sylva was friendly and even patronized the militants. The patronage was such that the former Governor was convinced that the militants had the power to rig him into office. It was at this point that militants were comfortably accommodated in Government House, given choice cars, and engaged in a spending spree. They became Lords of the land. Simultaneously, TS oiled his media machine and asked the media people to go to work. Every day, at least one letter was published in the national dallies, insulting he President on a daily basis. Chief Perekeme Richard Kpodoh is one of such persons whose name was used to sign such letters after they had been written by Sylva’s Chief Press Secretary Doufie Ola. So under Tmipre Sylva cultism and criminality were

deeply entrenched such that broad day light killings were almost a weekly occurrence. To this evil was added the use of drugs by the youths. The youths were so free with hard drugs that they became small emperors, committing havoc and obeying no rules because their sponsors were in government. Bayelsa became a gangster paradise.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature and government owes the people a duty to preserve lives and property, but when self-preservation is breached and such breaches are aided by government, then society has become Hobbesian where life is brutish and short. Bayelsans might have forgotten the reign of terror, extra-judicial killings and the gangland wars sponsored by the bloodiest regime of terror Bayelsans have ever seen. It was a Nazi regime, and totalitarianism of the fascist style that rode roughshod at that time. Those who killed might have forgotten but the families of the deceased can vividly remember that their source of hope was cut short by a regime of terror supervised by their son- bloody, a primitive generalissimo that became their nemesis.

Under Governor Timipre Sylva, Bayelsa State regressed to the Hobbesian State, where life was brutish, short and unpleasant. Those dark chapters are being re-written by Governor Seriake Dickson to entrench peace, security and civility. This is the strongest achievement of the Restoration Administration.

I thereby throw open a debate with Ex-Governor Timipre Sylva to defend the over 100 extra-judicial killings during his reign of terror. Fix a date, time and venue and I will meet you there. The so called APC members are invited to defend killing of Bayelsa youths and I will treat them to a cocktail of very gory incidents of another “Hilter” in a Third Reich. Timipre Sylva the purported Leader of APC cannot win even his polling unit because of these atrocities.

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Articles by Idumange John