The Bayelsa State chap- ter of the People’s Democratic Party (APC) has blamed the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and police for alleged violence in the rescheduled state Assembly election in Brass 2. PDP exonerated Governor Seriake Dickson of complicity in the suspension of the election result and hailed the Indepen- dent National Electoral Com- mission (INEC) for upturning the result.
The returning officer for Brass 2, Perekere Bertola of Federal University, Otuoke, had earlier declared Alfred Watson of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as winner of last Satur- day’s rescheduled election.
A statement signed by PDP publicity secretary, Osom Mak- bere in Yenagoa named APC state chairman, Tiwei Orun- imighe and newly elected APC state legislator, Israel Sunny Goli, as arrowheads of the violence.
The statement said the duo “armed and mobilised thugs to beat up an NYSC ad hoc staff and other officials of INEC at Ewoama community on the Brass Island, while they were on their way to the collation centre to submit the results of some of the polling units perceived to be strongholds of the PDP.”
He stated further “that Sunny Goli and Chief Orunimighe took the violent and barbaric step having realised that those results would have given outright vic- tory to the PDP candidate while also doctoring the results and forcing the returning officer for the assembly election to declare the APGA candidate as the win- ner with the flimsy, orchestrated and unconfirmed report that the election in those areas were marred by violence.”
PDP accused the “security agencies of not being proactive even after the PDP has raised an early alarm that the APC state chairman was on his way to the area with ex-militants and thugs in a gunboat to disrupt the elec- toral process”, pointing out that the security personnel “allowed themselves to be compromised.”
But reacting to the allegation, Goli described the statement as an afterthought, saying that the election result shows that the PDP is not on ground in the Brass area.
Goli expressed surprise that the PDP that came fourth behind the APGA, APC and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was crying more than the bereaved.
In his words: “The winner of the election is the APGA candi- date and not the APC; so what are they (PDP) crying about? The election was free and fair. PDP should not complain. They came fourth, so they are losers. They are not on ground.”
SAMUEL ESE, Yenagoa
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