Tony Olutomiwa, Yenagoa
Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has criticised the process which threw up Chief David Lyon as candidate of the All Progressives Congress ((APC) for the November 16 governorship election in the state, with hint of legal issues as he declared that the party was yet to have a candidate.
“What the APC did was a charade. I want everyone in APC to know that as we speak, there is no validly gubernatorial candidate for the November 16 general election”, he said.
Governor Dickson spoke, on Monday, at a media chat at the Government House, in Yenagoa, the state capital.
According to the governor, the direct primary method adopted by the APC meant that all members of the party were to vote for candidates of their choice but this was not the case as he alleged that the leadership of the party merely wrote the results that were announced.
For this reason, he said the opposition party in the state could not have claimed to have had a candidate, citing the Electoral Act and APC constitution and guidelines as legal foundation.
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He said it was for this alleged gap that aggrieved members of the party had filed cases in court to test the outcome of the primary election.
He said: “What the APC did was a charade. It was a mockery unlike our own primary that threw up a winner.
“The APC denied their members an opportunity to vote for who will be their flagbearer and simply cooked up figures as being validly nominated gubernatorial candidate for the November 16 general election.
“As far as we know, we are waiting to see a candidate in APC that is validly nominated. Once you say it is a direct primary then you must allow every registered member of the party to queue up in their wards and vote.
“ And I want everyone in this state to know that, everyone in APC to know that as we speak, there is no validly nominated gubernatorial candidate for the November 16 general election.
“The Electoral Act is clear, even the APC constitution and their guidelines are clear about how you become a candidate. You don’t become a candidate by being allocated figures, no.
“You win the votes. And if people did not vote, if APC members did not vote, then there could have been no result”.
The governor called on political parties to show responsibility in order to strengthen democracy and its processes, adding that without this such parties would be failing in their duties as institutions designed to protect the democratic rights of the people.
“ Any political party that has no capacity to organize itself, to hold free and fair and inclusive and acceptable primary election is not capable of playing its role in the area of strengthening and deepening our democracy.
“ If you are used to intimidating people, if you are used to cooking up fake figures, if you are used to just hijacking and collecting result sheets and writing results and announcing results without people coming to vote, you won’t know the importance of allowing the people in your communities, in your wards, in your local government areas and in our state to vote.
“I want our people to understand that for our democracy to survive political parties must conform themselves as responsible institutions capable of protecting the democratic rights of our people. And if you are a party that always believes in writing figures and allocating figures, well, if there are complaints, you will have yourselves to blame”.
Unlike the APC, Dickson said the PDP went for an indirect election and the whole world saw what they did.
He said though as human activity, it may not be perfect but people saw the method used and every candidate had access to delegates involving a lot of lobby and a lot of interactions.
He assured the people that PDP was on course, stating that the party has a validly nominated candidate for the November 16 general election.
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“Our candidate is qualified to run. I understand there are issues of qualification on the other side, but I don’t intend to go into that. I am only commenting as a bystander but we are watching. Our candidate has experience, our candidate is tested. Our candidate is not a novice. The office of governor of our state and any state at all is a very serious responsibility. This is a serious job, it is not the kind you force on an unwilling rooky”.
On the issue of deputy governorship candidate which had been a subject of controversy in the state, the governor averred that it was the prerogative of the candidate to choose and should not become such an intense issue to be so debated or generate crisis.
He also put to rest the alleged faceoff between him and the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Tonye Isenah, stating that there was no division either in the assembly or the party. He claimed it was all a rumour.
To the surprise of the journalists, both the governor and the speaker walked into the chamber together as many giggled.
The governor also debunked the perceived effect of those who may have defected from the PDP saying that such defections were still few and influenced by personal interest.
He insisted that past experience showed that such defections would not affect the PDP at the election.
