The controversy over the rumored resignation of Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, was finally resolved on Friday when the Presidency confirmed his departure. Bashir Ahmad, the President’s Special Assistant on Digital Communications, announced the news on his verified Twitter account, explaining that Sylva resigned to pursue his gubernatorial ambition. “Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, and former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, has resigned his appointment to contest in the next Bayelsa governorship election,” Ahmad tweeted.
Earlier on Friday, reports highlighted the uncertainty surrounding Sylva’s status, noting that senior officials at the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources would not confirm whether their boss had stepped down. While they acknowledged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) requires a minister to resign at least 30 days before the April 14, 2023 governorship primaries, they declined to verify Sylva’s resignation. “I have not seen his resignation letter and cannot confirm to you if he has resigned. But you know the rule of the party is that one must have resigned for at least 30 days before the primaries. So if he has sent his resignation letter to the President, I cannot confirm, but the fact remains that he is for the office of the governor of Bayelsa State,” an unnamed source at the ministry said, citing lack of authorization to be identified.
Sylva previously served a full term as Governor of Bayelsa State from 2008 to 2012 as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was then the ruling party at the federal level. Recently, some APC members in Bayelsa called on the party’s national leadership to disqualify Sylva from the governorship primaries, arguing that he had not resigned from his ministerial post in time. The petition, signed by party members from 43 wards across Ekeremor, Ogbia, Sagbama, Kolokuma/Opokuma, and Southern Ijaw local government areas, asserted that at the time of his screening, Sylva had not yet stepped down.
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