Ahead of the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa State, there are strong indications that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would again lost the State to the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
This is sequel to the inability of the APC to reconcile the prominent aggrieved aspirants that participated in its recent primary elections that saw the emergence of David Lyon as the flag bearer for the gubernatorial poll.
While other aspirants that contested for the ticket including, Ebitimi Amgbare, Diseye Poweigha and Ongoebi Maureen Etebu though not too comfortable with the outcome of primaries have remained silent, two front line aspirants, Heineken Lokpobiri, former Minister of State for Agriculture and Preye Aganaba, a business tycoon have rejected the exercise with a vow to take further actions that jeopardise the party’s chances.
The two aspirants both alleged that primaries did not take place as results were written in a hotel room, describing as the rape of democracy.
Shortly after Lyon was declared winner, Lokpobiri, rejected the outcome and wondered why election will be conducted in a hotel against the wish of the party.
The former minister said he was still trying to get details of what transpired in Bayelsa, insisting that he and his team never participated in any primaries that declared Lyon the flag bearer of the party.
According to him, there was no way he would be defeated in any election in Bayelsa by Lyon, adding that the majority members of the APC were supporting him and lamented why a primary was said to have started in an hotel in Yenagoa and ended in the hotel, thus sidelining the secretariat of the party in the state.
He said party members gathered at the secretariat in Yenagoa and waited in vain for the arrival of the committee saddled with the conduct of the primaries and queried why a result was purportedly declared by someone other than the Returning Officer and Governor of Yobe State, who chaired the committee.
Lokpobiri expressed optimism that the national leadership of the party would look into the development in Bayelsa and ensure a credible process that would throw up a popular candidate for the APC.
Similarly, Aganaba described the party’s primary election in the state as a mockery of the democratic process and rejected the outcome of the party’s primaries and referred to the primaries that produced Lyon as the candidate of the party as a political hoax and lacking any semblance of credibility.
While also alleging that the results were written in a hotel in Yenagoa, Aganaba said: “The process leading to the direct primary election was rife with irregularities and has set a bad precedent for a political party that prides itself as a progressive which is supposed to lead by example.
“Preye Aganaba did not partake in the September 4th APC governorship primary election because there was no election. The degrading votes allotted to him are a complete fabrication and designed to ridicule him and his supporters”.
He disclosed that few issues were raised by the aspirants to ensure a credible process during a stakeholders’ meeting with the Returning Officer and Chairman of the state Primary Election Committee, Mai-Mala Buni, the Governor of Yobe State.
Aganaba said, the stakeholders had agreed that the names of returning officers should be published at ward levels; result sheets should be available in the various local government areas and also that tags should be provided for the eight local government agents and 105 ward agents.
He lamented that though the Chairman and Secretary of the Committee agreed to the demands, they failed to honour them during the process that led to the primaries.
“The Returning Officer, Mai-Mala Buni was not present during the primary election, having travelled back to Abuja the same night after the meeting, never to return. In the morning, the Secretary disappeared and his phones switched off, thus thwarting any effort by the aspirants to address these discrepancies.
“The above actions clearly cast a huge doubt on the neutrality of the election committee members and its commitment towards conducting a free and fair election as they have breached every trust reposed on them.
“The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC) should distance itself from this scam and reject the result completely. This sham with fake results written in hotel rooms cannot stand,” he declared.
Apart from the aspirants, some party elders drawn from the eight local councils of Bayelsa State have thrown their weight behind the decision of these aspirants, particularly, Lokpobiri to reject the outcome of the governorship primary election which they said was flawed and a mockery of the internal democracy of the APC.
The elders led by a former Security Adviser to Bayelsa government and a chieftain of the APC from Sagbama, Perekeme Kpodoh said the conduct and the processes of the disputed primaries that led to the emergence of Lyon was characterised by deceit, fraud and disrespect to the six other aspirants and the entire members of the APC in the state.
Kpodoh while reacting to the outcome of the result and after due consultations with some elders of APC, agreed that the processes were heavily flawed whereby the party machinery was allegedly handed over to an aspirant and results hand-written in a hotel.
“While APC chieftains and delegates were still on their way to Yenagoa with authentic result of governorship primaries, one senator, who claimed to have the mandate of the Yobe Governor, was stampeded into announcing a fraudulent score as result of the primaries,” he said.
Kpodoh, who said that though he had earlier warned the national leadership of a clandestine plot to impose a candidate on APC members in Bayelsa through fraudulent and violent means, warned that the emergence of Lyon is grand conspiracy to deny APC the opportunity to take over the state on November 16, 2019.
Unlike the situation in Kogi where the National Working Committee of APC had held a reconciliatory meeting with aggrieved aspirants and Governor Yahaya Bello who clinched the ticket and they have agreed to forge a common front ahead of the main election, the story in Bayelsa is different, leaving the party in deep seated polarisation in the battle against the already settled PDP.
James Kwen, Abuja
