The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva has predicted the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would convincingly win the 2023 election.
The former governor of Bayelsa State was also sure that the party, which has no governor in the six South-South states at the moment, would completely takeover the geopolitical zone after the election next year.
There will no governorship election in Edo and Bayelsa States until the last quarter of next year when the general elections would have been concluded.
Sylva, who is the leader of the APC in Bayelsa State , spoke when the National Vice Chairman (South-South) of the party, Chief Victor Giadom and other top national executives met with the leadership and stakeholders in Yenagoa, the state capital.
The former Governor said: ”APC is a large family and it is our ability to accommodate all the shades and tendencies that will determine how far we can go. We have the muscle and capacity to deliver, that is why I term this campaign, Operation Take Over.
“APC is the dominant party in the state and from the horizon, we can see a new day”.
He said Tinubu’s win would be made easy by his excellent track records of innovative governance, stressing that the APC candidate became Governor of Lagos State with an Internally Generated Revenue of less than N1 billion, and jacked it up to N51 billion by the end of his administration.
“Tinubu opened doors of opportunities, built a firm economy, solid infrastructure and created multiple platforms for human capacity building”, Sylva said.
Giadom commended Sylva for his huge contributions towards the success of the party in the state.
“We respect your huge contributions towards the success of the party.
“We are here to listen to you, the stakeholders of the party, and to analyse the health of the party. I thank you all for coming and I thank Bayelsans for always supporting us”, he said.
Welcoming the team, the state APC chairman, Chief Dennis Otiotio pledged that the party would take over not just the state but the region as well.
Otiotio congratulated Sylva on his well-deserved nomination as Commander of the Order of the Niger.
“Sylva initiated the Amnesty Programme and brought peace to the region. He was also instrumental and was at the forefront of the passage of the historic Petroleum Industry Act 2021, led by President Muhammadu Buhari. So the award is highly merited”, Otiotio said.
Also in attendance were past and serving members of the National Assembly, past and serving members of the state Assembly, former chairmen of the elders caucus, principal appointees of the Buhari administration, former deputy spokesperson of the APC and ranking members of the party.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) however said the APC boast as “sheer arrogance of a non-existing political party in the state”.
The state Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Ebiye Ogoli described the statement as a mere joke by a party that had no base and structure in the state, where many of them had since defected from the APC to the PDP.
“That party, APC, is in disarray in Bayelsa State. They have no base, no structure. Their few members kept joining the umbrella party since we came on board in 2020. Before the 2023 elections, we will wind down the APC in the state completely”, Ogoli said.
He said PDP remained the only viable political party in the state.
