Family members and children of former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva, were reportedly left shaken at his Maitama, Abuja, residence after security agents surrounded the home and mounted a 24-hour siege.
Naijaonpoint reports that Sylva, a senior All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart, is under investigation for allegations bordering on security and public finances, claims he has strongly refuted.
The former governor was initially linked by speculators to a purported coup plot against the incumbent government led by President Bola Tinubu.
Despite those denials, the siege continued, raising questions among his associates about motive, process, and proportionality.
“Before these developments, the public was unsettled by unfounded attempts to link him to a purported coup plot, allegations the Federal Government and the military have since dismissed in absolute terms,” his aide said.
In a blistering October raid that saw the house ransacked, operatives arrested four of Sylva’s aides along with domestic staff.
Months later, the detainees, including ordinary domestic workers, are still held without public clarity, according to Sylva’s Special Assistant on Media and Public Affairs, Julius Bokoru.
Bokoru decried the emotional toll and detention ambiguity in a statement issued weeks ago, insisting that while politics brews, innocent families burn.
He named those arrested during the October incursion as Musa Mohammed (Sylva’s driver), Ayuba Reuben, Friday Lusa Paul (escort driver), Sylva’s personal driver and unnamed domestic workers.
Painted in anguish, Bokoru revealed how detention has wrecked not just the aides but their households.
“Yet the most distressing element of this saga is not the swirl of speculation, but the quiet suffering of innocent men caught in the crossfire… These individuals, fathers, husbands, ordinary Nigerians, have been held on grounds that appear unclear at best, and entirely vague to their traumatised families,” he said.
Bokoru said the siege and detention came even after Sylva formally communicated his readiness for EFCC questioning, with only one caveat, failing health.
“This persists even after Chief Sylva wrote to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, reaffirming his readiness to appear before the Commission on a mutually convenient date, subject only to his ongoing treatment for a life-threatening medical condition,” he added.
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