2023 AND THE RACE FOR THE PRESIDENCY

Timipreye Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, has what it takes to run, argues Dan Amor

“That which God writes on your forehead, thou wilt come to it”- Koran.

In 2012, during the reign of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as President of Nigeria, Chief Timipreye Marlin Sylva, the debonair former Governor of Bayelsa State, was treated like a political outcast, despite his towering achievements as governor. Because of a feud or disagreement between him and his brother, the former president, all sorts of mud was hurled at the consummate strategist. He was not allowed to complete his second term as the federal government even used its attack dog then, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to go after him with spurious allegations of impropriety. Most of his property were seized and he was left like a fish on a dry sandy beach panting.

Despite receiving the wrong end of the stick, Sylva maintained his cool without grudges. As a deft and calculating leader, Sylva’s life is a cautionary text. Before the fogs of hypocrisy, the currents that dash pride upon the rocks of hubris, he would only smile when he observed power’s effects on character, and character’s on power. Destiny can only be delayed and not denied. The story has been confirmed that in top All Progressives Congress (APC) circles and among the king makers in the party, Sylva is touted as a possible successor to President Muhammadu Buhari if power must move to the South come 2023. It is this that has made fifth columnists and alliterative headline casters to cook all sorts of stories to dent his image. But, can they kill his destiny? No.

The story of the fall and rise of Sylva in the intricate political power calculus of Nigeria is like the political thriller of the century, illuminating the mystery of an extraordinary politician who continues to fascinate Nigerians. Even as notable and discerning politicians across the country have started realizing that the game has changed, not a handful know that the political pendulum is swinging towards Sylva. But when the refrain is now relayed in anecdotal remarks, those who can read between the lines should now understand that the game is up. Therefore, the fall and rise of Timipreye Sylva is about the most elegant and happiest story in Nigerian political history. Young, experienced, energetic, brilliant and caring, Sylva is a modern day phenomenon whose corpus requires a large canvas.

Even before he became Governor on May 27, 2008, Sylva, a consummate technocrat and politician, learned the rope in the management of the Petroleum and Gas industry when he worked as Senior Special Assistant to Chief Edmund Daukoru who was then Minister of State for Energy and Petroleum Resources between July 2005 and May 2007. Since the appointment of Sylva as Minister of State for Petroleum in 2019, the unnerving failure in the sector has ceased. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which hitherto could not service its metropoles, has suddenly woken up to its responsibility. A deliberate approach towards entrenching transparency, integrity and probity has been introduced in the management of the ministry.

This new approach was integrated through the deployment of new templates which encourage goal-setting for meeting and assessing key performance indicators at the end of targets. Implemented across all levels, this approach has yielded positive results and made meetings more proactive and reports more result-oriented. It is important to note that the various departments and agencies under the ministry have come together to develop an industry-wide IT platform to provide online, real-time information on product supply and distribution. This strategic management policy came handy in ameliorating the fuel scarcity threat which would have resulted from the #ENDSARS protests which rocked the country in October last year.

It is important to emphasize here that the inherent shortfall in gasoline supply had been mismanaged for decades. Barefaced corruption in the industry had aggravated poor management to an untold magnitude. At a time, the importation of petroleum products was the family business of a head of state. The havoc done to the economy by this singular act is simply unprecedented and unacceptable. But the publication of the NNPC’s audit reports since 2019 when Sylva came on board, the monthly publication of its expenses and those of its subsidiaries and its success story and that of the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) with attendant celebration of the Oil & Gas industry by the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) under Sylva cannot be overemphasized. For space constraint, we can’t enumerate here the numerous achievements the ministry has recorded so far under his watch.

Here is a man who was almost rendered jobless due to political miscalculation. Then in 2013, Sylva became one of the prime movers and rallying points in the formation of the APC. He virtually donated his hotel in Abuja free of charge to the party for almost all-party activities. Politically, Timipreye Sylva is larger than his frame. Imbued with great leadership qualities, the Bayelsa-born politician is a natural leader who does not suffer fools gladly. As the best material in the South South region to assume the toga of the Nigerian presidency, he has given a good account of himself as he has contributed substantially to the reform currently going on in the oil and gas sector. The great work he has done in the sector is there for all to see manifesting in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021.

A leader with composite charisma, excellent aura, friendly disposition, agile and intellectually above average, who graduated top of his class in the Department of English at the University of Port Harcourt, Sylva is a detribalised Nigerian who has friends in all the states of the country. He will be 59 on July 7, 2023 when he would be leading the largest black country in the world, God willing. Timipreye Sylva is a happy warrior and an existential hero, a talisman of possibility, of what would be as we march into the future. It can be said with a fair amount of certainty that the essence of his political attractiveness is his extraordinary political intelligence and sagacity. It can also be said that he has a mind of his own. It is not literary, metaphysical and moral. Sylva is articulate and often witty, but, as a grammarian, he does not seek verbal polish. Yet, no one can doubt the seriousness of his concern for Nigeria and Nigerians.

Amor, literary critic and journalist, wrote from Abuja