The untold story
Tony Olutomiwa and Ayodele Olalere
The outcome of the Bayelsa State governorship election will continue to generate reactions and opinions for some time to come. It is not just about the decision that the reign of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was brought to an end after holding sway since democratic governance returned in 1999 but also the role and actions of political actors, institutions and the process of the election.
Of course, the crucial position of the people who actually constitute the kernel of democracy would also be referenced as either relegated or respected.
The November 16 election was a straight contest between the PDP and the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC.
At the end of the day, David Lyon of the APC was declared winner of the election with 352,552 votes, while Douye Diri of the PDP polled 143,172 votes.
The returning officer, Faraday Orumwese, who is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin, gave the total number of registered voters as 922,562 and the number of accredited voters was 517,883.
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“That Lyon David of APC, having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared winner and returned elected,” Orumwese declared.
Except in Sagbama and Kolokumo/Opokuma local government areas, Governor Seriake Dickson and the candidate, Douye Diri’s areas respectively, APC won with high margins throughout the state.
For a government that had been in the saddle close to eight years and seen as a performer, it was surprising to many analysts that the PDP could be so routed in the election.
But keen followers of political developments in the state have adduced several reasons for the outcome; bordering on some fundamental issues, which they said influenced the emergence of Lyon as the winner.
Analysts have pointed out that the starting point in evaluating PDP’s defeat was the conduct of the governorship primary election, a process which threw up Senator Diri as candidate.
The process has been criticised as shutting out some popular candidates, who could have given Lyon a better fight. A name prominently mentioned was that of the former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Timi Alaibe, who till date has a case in court challenging the primary process. Limiting the choice of candidate to the Restoration Caucus, the group, loyal to the governor, it has also been argued, led to dissension among the other aspirants.
It is believed that the emergence of Diri as the PDP candidate polarised the party. While governorship aspirants like Keniebi Okoko, Kemela Okara, Anthony George-Ikoli, SAN, and Hon. Sunday Agadaga declared their support to Diri and were seen on the campaign train, in keeping to their words, the 21 other aspirants, who contested the primaries fizzled out. They never gave any support, many believed.
Among those who felt aggrieved, only Alaibe went to court to challenge the exercise and the case is pending. Diri was Alaibe’s political protégé dating back several years.
But there is a reverse side to the Alaibe argument, none of those who kicked against the emergence of Diri did so because they preferred Alaibe. Everyone of them wanted the ticket for himself. Even when Dickson, conscious of what happened to the PDP in Ekiti State, where the party was alleged to have lost, as a result of then governor, Ayo Fayose, imposing his deputy as running mate, encouraged members of the Restoration Team to close ranks and reduce the number of aspirants from the political family, none was ready to step down for the other. Each one wanted the governor to anoint him. Even some who had previously told the governor that they wouldn’t be contesting eventually went and bought nomination forms. In all these, none of them wanted the ticket given to Alaibe, whom they accused of returning to the party on the eve of the primaries just to take the ticket. Giving Alaibe the PDP ticket, therefore, would have even caused more friction than eventually happened.
Another angle to the Alaibe’s issue was the fact that he was supported by former President Goodluck Jonathan, who also voted for him at the primaries. And in spite of persuasions that Governor Dickson should allow Alaibe to fly the PDP flag as recommended by Jonathan, the idea could not fly and resentment set in. Added to this was the perception that Dickson never gave Jonathan enough respect, having to defy his convictions on Alaibe but instead went ahead with his favourite, Diri.
Indeed, this perception, right or wrong, further re-echoed when the deputy governorship candidate slot was also not zoned to Ogbia area where Jonathan hails from as some analysts had suggested as a way of placating the former president and hedging against possible influence of the APC in the area.
Many of the former president’s political allies were said to have voted for APC and Accord Party in the last presidential and National Assembly elections.
The counter argument to the Jonathan narrative, however, is that the former president had not been of great help to both the PDP in the state and the governor himself. Jonathan’s wife, Patience, is known to have openly worked against Dickson’s re-election. Although Dickson had no open confrontation with Jonathan, the former first lady remained in the opposition, the former president could not rein her. Secondly, following the alleged military expedition in the state during the last presidential and National Assembly elections, many in the Restoration family expected Jonathan to come out strongly to condemn what happened. They waited in vain. So, it didn’t seem natural to reward that coldness with a Deputy Governorship ticket.
Instead, the slot was given to former commissioner for works in the state, Lawrence Ewhrujakpo, a serving senator, from Sagbama, same local government with Dickson. It has been speculated that Dickson’s action was to enable him go to the Senate by replacing Ewhrujakpo, who represents Bayelsa West Senatorial District and with the expectation that the party would win.
Although Dickson had not told anyone he planned to run for a senate seat, a very close aide of his reasoned that it was not wrong for the outgoing governor to want to secure his own political future.
However, the governor tried to balance the political positions by giving the Speaker of the state House of Assembly to Southern Ijaw to curry the support of the area. But this never had any major impact at the election as Lyon won overwhelmingly in Southern Ijaw, which is his local government.
Invariably, the Jonathan silence and aloofness coupled with his wife’s long standing feud with Governor Dickson were to play out at the election. Many believed that the former president’s followers and those of Alaibe voted for APC in the election. As a matter fact, APC won Ogbia, Jonathan’s local government. That speaks to the reality and depth of his discord with Governor Dickson and by implication the aspiration of Diri to be governor.
Even in the PDP firmament, there is the view that some of the leaders who pretended to be in the party actually worked against the party based on personal interest. Likewise, the various defections in the party before the election were to reflect in the outcome of the election because unlike the 2015 defections, this time, some of those who left the party were grassroots oriented and made their relevance felt in the voting pattern.
But the situation was different in the APC where Lyon was a strategic pick as events have shown. Perhaps having been in the political lurch for a long time, APC was more interested in electability rather than any other consideration. For this, aspirants like former Speaker of the House of Assembly and former Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri, a lawyer and doctorate holder and Preye Aganaba, a chartered engineer, were bypassed in favour of Lyon on account of what was attributed to be his public goodwill and possible electoral dividends.
In spite of disagreement on Lyon’s choice leading to litigations by both Lokpobiri and Aganaba, the APC leadership stuck to its guns. It was a bitter disagreement which almost cost Lyon the ticket, following Lokpobri’s suit on which a Federal High Court ruled that his emergence as candidate did not follow due process and as such APC had no candidate for the election. It took the ruling of an Appeal Court to set aside the judgment paving the way for Lyon’s participation at the election.
Despite the initial rejection of his candidature by co-aspirants and criticism of his suitability to be governor by the PDP, Lyon’s popularity soared and that counted at the election. Observers believed that many who voted APC did so because of Lyon’s persona rather than the party’s manifesto or appeal. They believed he could transfer his personal generosity to governance thereby affecting their lives in economic terms.
But there is also a counter argument to all these. The APC was able to manage its own post-primaries crisis because it is in control of the centre, and there is hope that those who lose out in the state can always get compensated with federal patronage and appointments. Even if the losers refused to cooperate, the centre could always beat them into line by wielding the big stick.
Yes, the issue of the state economy affected the PDP at the election. And with the pervading unemployment and general poverty as a national index, disoriented people jumped at the call for change as APC campaign mantra.
Bayelsa is a civil service state without any serious business activities and as such the people had hitherto been used to free money from government, which Dickson stopped, believing such tendency would not hasten real development but by investing in strategic empowerment of the people.
Arguably, the Restoration Government under Governor Dickson had followed up in this regard by investing heavily in education, infrastructure and health in particular with legacies to show for its new thinking and reorientation of the Bayelsa people to see development as a function of education, infrastructure and institutions. But to the people, especially the youths, the idea is that Bayelsa is rich from the God-given oil and proceeds from that should consequently be made available for them as a priority. This mentality has been so ingrained that government is seen as not doing much for them in spite of the laudable achievements of the administration. Evaluating the Dickson administration in this regard, without due observance of the state of the national economy, therefore, would be missing the point indeed. But in a political situation, where poverty is prevalent, such proposition of an alternative could have a serious effect, more so, looking at the sophistication of the electorate in relation to decision making at election.
The administration packed many developmental projects in its kitty but could not deliver on all due to the recession in the country. APC latched on this situation with the added castigation that the administration could not provide electricity for the people without considering the constraining features of electricity generation in the country.
But politics could be so emotion-laden that persuasive alternatives could be seen as real.
Nonetheless, informed watchers of the entire election have averred that the outcome could have been different if the process had been properly followed. From the PDP to the civil society who monitored the exercise, criticisms had greeted the results of the election as failing in due process and credibility.
Accusations are rising that critical institutions like the military and INEC colluded with the APC to rig the election.
There have also been allegations that in places like Nembe, Ogbia and Brass, elections did not hold but figures were only awarded to the winner.
Ballot box snatching, disruption of voting and outright hijacking of election materials by alleged agents of the APC are the staple of post-election accusations.
The belief is that APC thugs, covertly given protection by security operatives, disrupted voting in PDP strongholds, even as the ruling party, under the cover of the same military, succeeded in keeping away truly independent monitors from its own strongholds, scared away local PDP elements, and had a field day loading figures for itself. It also refused to do much of the collations at the polling booths, preferring to do it at the local government headquarters.
The pre-election violence in Nembe and Ogbia and alleged arrest of PDP stakeholders on the day of election were among other issues the PDP and some election monitors have also compiled as blight of the election.
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For these reasons, many PDP supporters could not exercise their franchise at the election which effectively reduced its chances at the polls.
Governor Dickson, PDP and Diri have denounced the process of the election. While Dickson called for the cancelation of declared election in Nembe, Diri asked INEC to reject election figures where there had been alleged infractions.
The takeaway from the Bayelsa governorship election is the fact that all politics is local. The people must count in elections and governments everywhere must prioritise the basic interests of the people in policies and programmes since the people are the essence of government.
Also the alleged flawed process of the election calls for major electoral reforms in the country where the votes will count and without shutting out any eligible voters. The role of the nation’s institutions also raises the question if democracy could actually thrive and endure as a feasible form of government in Nigeria even with retrospective look at similar instances of controversial election outcomes in recent past.
For the APC and the federal government, the outcome of Saturday’s election in Bayelsa was a welcome revolt of the people. However, for the PDP and credible civil society organizations, what happened was simply an election coup, with predetermined results from Abuja.