MOVEMENT FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE IN BAYELSA YENAGOA, BAYELSA STATE.

Your Excellency,

A MEMO TO PRESIDENT YAR’ ADUA (1)

We are constrained by recent socio-political developments in parts of the Niger Delta region, to send this memo to you, believing that the opinions and suggestions expressed herein, if properly followed and taken seriously, could be the needed tonic that could lead us out of the present logjam towards fashioning a way forward for the region.
But before we go into the nity-gritty of the discourse, permit us your Excellency, to briefly inform and educate you on the constitution of this body and the aims and objectives behind the establishment of the organization that is essentially operating within the bounds of Bayelsa state, at least for now.
The “Movement for Good Governance in Bayelsa” is a socio-political organization with membership drawn from among some patriotic Bayelsans who are desirous and zealous about ensuring and sustaining good and better democratic administration in the state. Its existence dates back to early 2004, soon after the 2003 governorship election in the state.
We have the over-riding objective to ensure, first of all, that a credible, purposeful and God-fearing democratic governance is put in place in Bayelsa State each time there is need to do so, through the constitutionally enshrined democratic process. We owe it as social responsibility to breed hard on such government to successfully deliver to the people the much needed dividends of democracy.
In doing this, your Excellency, our believe is that we should have built confidence and respect among the majority of Bayelsans so much to the extent that each time we come around to solicit their votes, it will be glaring to them that their mandate would not be misplaced. This was exactly what we did during the April 14 2007 governorship election, leading to the emergence of Chief Timipre Sylva as the third elected civilian Governor of Bayelsa State.
Sir, it may interest you to know that it was the foundation that we laid during that election that has been carrying us through even in the re-run governorship election of May 24, 2008, following the nullification of the April 14, 2007 governorship polls on the order of the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt on April 15, 2008. We have the arduous task of ensuring that the people who gave the governor, his deputy and other elected officials their mandate are carried along in the governance of the state. It is their right and they deserve to know how the people entrusted with the governance of the state are carrying on with such challenging assignment.
Your Excellency, we are sorry to have taken you through this winding road, considering your busy schedule of equally ensuring that even you do not misplace the trust and confidence placed upon you by Nigerians in providing them good governance that may exceed those of the previous administrations in the country. And, that also means that since the entire 37 states in the country including Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) constitute your constituency, your eyes should expectedly focus on the way and manner the states are also governed by their respective chief executives.
It is for this reason, Sir, that we wish to most sincerely commend you for the steps that you have taken so far in tackling the hydra-headed Niger Delta problem. Successive governments in the country have been paying lip service or even playing politics over the agitations and cry from the Niger Delta region that produces over 90 percent of the nation’s wealth and her foreign reserves through their God-given natural endowment, crude oil. Yet, it is from this wealth that Abuja was transformed from squalor to today’s modern city, which is the pride of Nigerians and indeed Africans generally.
Since the discovery of oil at Oloibiri, Bayelsa state in 1957, there has not been any developmental change in that community, not to mention the rest of the state and the region of Niger Delta as a whole, which is today the cradle of the nation’s sustainability. Within these years of oil exploration and exploitation, farm lands have been devastated and our aquatic lives totally destroyed, leading to hunger, poverty and general socio-infrastructural decay, a case of soap entering the eyes of someone that is already in the bathing water.
Your Excellency, you even painted this horrible and most horrendous picture during your inaugural speech as the elected President of this country on May 29, 2007 at the Eagle Square, Abuja. To demonstrate further your feelings and commitment to turn things around for the better in the Niger Delta region, you re-emphasized the point that the region’s problem is on the front-burner of your administration’s seven-point agenda. That was at the one year anniversary of your administration on May 29, 2008.
Undoubtedly, it’s been more than one year since you gave the down-trodden people of the Niger Delta region the promise of moving them from despair to hope, laced with succour, large enough to assuage their years of neglect, abandonment, under-development, unemployment, absence of socio-infrastructural facilities and dis-empowerment of our youths. Any wonder therefore, your Excellency, why youth restiveness, kidnapping, killings, vandalisation of oil pipelines and other militant activities should be on unabated?
We shall look at this development in detail in our next memo to you, by the grace of God. Until then, may God continue to bless and keep you to play your path meritoriously in the service of this nation.

Sincerely Yours,