ONYEDI GABRIEL, PORT HARCOURT
The relationship between a former governor-elect of Bayelsa State, Chief David Lyon and the Minister of State for Petroleum, who is also a former governor of the state, Chief Timipre Sylva, has collapsed irretrievably, it was learnt at the weekend.
A source, who spoke to FirstNews said the duo were in a long-drawn cold war and could no longer look each other eyeball-to-eyeball.
The source, who is close to Lyon said, “The relationship between Sylva and Lyon has crumbled for good. They are no longer on talking terms. It is so bad that they don’t follow the same route and don’t attend the same functions.
“If Lyon wants to board a flight and someone tells him that Sylva is on that same flight, he will not join that flight again. The same thing applies to Sylva.”
It was gathered that Lyon was absent at the ground-breaking of the Atlantic Refinery at Okpoama in Brass Local Government Area on Saturday, a ceremony that was hosted by Sylva and attracted all his political associates in Bayelsa.
Also, two weeks ago when the Okpoama Kingdom and the Bayelsa State Government threw a lavish reception for Sylva in the kingdom, Lyon, who hitherto was at each event involving Sylva, was absent.
It was further gathered that Sylva had tactically removed Lyon from all activities of the APC in Bayelsa and was planning to ensure that none of Lyon’s loyalist emerges in any party leadership position at the forthcoming APC congress.
The source said Lyon was highly betrayed by Sylva, whom he relied on as his political godfather.
He said, “Only few people can survive what Lyon went through in the hands of Sylva. Remember that Sylva was almost going into political extinction and the APC was at the verge of collapsing completely in Bayelsa when Lyon stepped into the stage.
“Lyon resuscitated Sylva financially and bankrolled all the activities of the APC, bringing that dying party into reckoning in the state. In the 2019 election, Bayelsans believed in the APC because of Lyon and voted for Lyon en masse not the APC. Lyon drove all the campaigns himself doling out money to all the campaign structures with little or no assistance from anybody.
“But Sylva, whom Lyon relied on to take care of matters for him and the APC, went to sleep. He kept saying he was on top of the matter as the leader of the APC but was doing absolutely nothing.
“We warned Lyon that Sylva was nonchalant about the court case that later sacked him, but he still believed in him until the Supreme Court kicked him out a day to his inauguration as a governor.”
He said the roles played by Sylva in other cases the APC and Lyon relied on to bounce back to reckoning compounded the woes of the former governor-elect.
He said, “Sylva started hobnobbing with the PDP and Governor Douye Diri to the disappointment of Lyon and the APC. At the end, all the cases the party relied on were frustrated with accusing fingers pointing at Sylva.
“As a Petroleum Minister, Sylva has been trying to use his position to collect Lyon’s contract from Agip. Payments for that contract have not been coming and most people have abandoned Lyon for Sylva to avoid hunger.
“Most people, who were hanging around Lyon that time were all planted by Sylva. Right now, they have deserted Lyon and have all gone back to Sylva.
“Sylva did all these, including embarrassing President Muhammadu Buhari, because of his ambition to return as a governor. He believes that if David Lyon had been inaugurated as a governor, his people from Southern Ijaw would have mandate him to do a second term and by then his political influence would have been whittled down. But with Lyon out, he can battle with any PDP governor to return in 2024.”
When asked what he meant by embarrassing the President, he said Buhari was already airborne to attend Lyon’s inauguration when he heard that it had been cancelled by the court.
He said, “The Presidency later understood that it was the negligence of Sylva that caused Buhari that embarrassment. Sylva was always telling the then Chairman of the APC that he was on top of the situation but was actually doing nothing until the court sacked Lyon and the APC.
“I don’t think there is anything that will make Lyon and Sylva to talk to each other in this life. Lyon, though not a talking type, has understood the betrayal and the conspiracy that led to his travails.”
But a source from Sylva’s camp, who spoke in confidence, said the minister was not responsible for Lyon’s misfortunes.
“How can he be responsible when he was the one that drafted him into the race in the first place. A former Minister, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, wanted the ticket but Sylva opted for Lyon and even led the campaign that eventually made him a governor,” he said.