How Former Governor Sylva Rose Through the APC Before EFCC Summons

Timipre Sylva’s rise in the All Progressives Congress has been marked by political reversals, financial influence and a renewed legal challenge. The former Bayelsa governor joined the APC after losing the PDP ticket that would have allowed him to seek a second term.

Sylva first became Bayelsa governor in 2007 on the PDP platform and remained in office until 2012. After the PDP denied him its governorship ticket, he defected to the APC and contested the 2015 election as the party’s candidate. Seriake Dickson, the incumbent PDP governor, defeated him.

The loss did not end Sylva’s influence in Bayelsa politics. He later described himself as a founding member of the APC, and the party’s state leadership credited him with financing its activities. In May 2023, then-state APC chairman Dennis Otiotio called Sylva a major pillar of the party and said he had been its sole sponsor in previous elections.

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As a founding member of the APC, and one who joined other well-meaning Nigerians in building the party with sweat and money, it is deeply saddening to witness how the ideals we espoused have been so thoroughly and unrecognisably thwarted.

Otiotio said the party expected its members to support Sylva after he became the APC candidate for the November 11, 2023, governorship election. Sylva’s influence also coincided with a return to federal politics. In May 2022, while serving as minister of state for petroleum resources, he sought the APC presidential nomination.

That trajectory changed after Sylva resigned from the APC on August 31, 2026. In his resignation letter, he said the ideals he and other party builders had supported had been “thoroughly and unrecognisably thwarted.” The EFCC has also renewed its demand that he appear before the agency over an alleged $14.86 million fraud.

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Timipre Sylva has been the sole sponsor of the party in the previous elections. He has been the pillar behind the party; he has been the sole financier of the party and the people felt that now that he has been elected the candidate of our party, we have to come out en masse and show him love and commitment.