Stop Attacking Sylva,Wabote, Group Warns

A group, the Transparency In Petroleum Exploration and Development Initiative (TIPEDI), has  warned  against serial attacks on  the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, and the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Simbi Wabote.

The group  said the action of the detractors is unfair to the good intent of Sylva and Wabote  to turn around the nation’s oil gas sector.

The group’s Director of Field Operations, Derek Igho, who conveyed the  warning in a statements, advised Timi Frank and one Jackson Ude, to desist from being used as vehicles for campaign of calumny against Wabote whom he noted was their target.

He stated:”From our investigations, it has become clear that the entire campaign of calumny against Engr. Simbi Wabote is being orchestrated by forces that are no longer comfortable with his many achievements as Executive Secretary of the Local Content Board. But rather than coming out openly themselves to take him on, they resort to using Jackson Ude and lately Timi Frank, both of whom are well known for such activities to be their hatchet men.

“But then any right thinking person, will rather commend Engr. Wabote for resorting to legal means to seek redress for the unwarranted, frivolous and libelous allegations that were made against him by Jackson Ude, who thought that because he was hiding in the United States, the long arm of the law would not catch up with him.”

He described Wabote as a technocrat, who is well known within the oil and gas industry for his operational philosophy of transparency, accountability and zero tolerance for wastes.

He disclosed that his group has been closely monitoring the case in the US and we know that several motions filed by Jackson Ude’s lawyers at the Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, USA, have failed as the trial Judge had ruled against them.

The last  mention on the matter,he said ,came up on December 22nd when the Judge gave them deadline of January 4th 2022 to file their “Dispositive Response” which they had been delaying.

He added:”It is, therefore, obvious that with the ongoing Libel suit against Jackson Ude in the US not going well for him, there is no more hiding place, so rather than focusing on proving their allegations in Court, they have resorted to their well known tactic of spreading lies on social media. All in their desperate bid to portray Engr. Simbi Wabote in negative light before the public”, the statement added.