The internal wrangling in the All Progressives Congress \n(APC), which led to the inability of the party to field governorship \ncandidates in Rivers and Zamfara states in the last general elections, \nmay repeat itself in the November 16 governorship election in Bayelsa \nState, if the party does not put its house in order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Already, members of the party are locked in a battle of \nintelligence with a former governor of the state and current Minister of\n State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, over the choice of David Lyon as \nits flag bearer in the forthcoming election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lyon had emerged the governorship candidate of the APC \nhaving polled 42,138 votes to defeat five other aspirants in the primary\n election of the party conducted on September 5, 2019 by the APC Bayelsa\n State Governorship Primary Election Committee, chaired by the Yobe \nState Governor, Mai-Mala Buni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lyon is believed to be the preferred choice of Sylva.
\nThe collation officer for the poll, Senator Emmanuel Dangana, who \ndeclared the results in Yenagoa, said Diseye Poweigha came second with \n1,533 votes while Maureen Etebu got 964 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, Ebitimi Amgbare polled 633 votes and the immediate \npast Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Heineken \nLokpobiri, scored 571 votes while Preye Aganaba got 354 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, one of the aggrieved members, Chief Loveday \nOndekumo, has accused Sylva of foisting Lyon on the party through a sham\n primary that violated the APC constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said aggrieved members have petitioned the national \nexecutive of the party and vowed that they would fight the injustice \nuntil it is reversed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He warned that with two of the governorship aspirants, \nSenator Lokpobiri and Engr. Aganaba, challenging the outcome of the \nalleged primary in court, the party could have another Rivers and \nZamfara situation, where the APC did not field candidates in the 2019 \ngeneral election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ondekumo alleged that Sylva deliberately presented Lyon, \nwho he said is a weak candidate, to enable the Peoples Democratic Party \n(PDP) win the governorship contest, easily.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSylva wants to retain both the ministerial position and \nthe leadership of the party in the state because of his interest in the \ngovernorship in 2024. He is not committed to ensuring that the APC wins.\n He is even not ready to fund Lyon\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe heard that he has secretly reached out to Governor \nSeriake Dickson so that PDP can have the upper hand in the election. \nThat is the reason he deliberately foisted Lyon on the party because he \nknows he is a weak candidate as opposed to Lokpobiri or Aganaba,\u201d \nOndekumo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The APC chieftain further claimed that Sylva and some \nleaders of the party in the state knew that Lyon does not have the \nexperience, exposure or capacity for the office of governor but that \nthey were only interested in milking the wealthy pipeline surveillance \ncontractor with the oil multinational, AGIP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey know Lyon is not marketable and that he is very \nscared about what he has been pushed into. That is one of the reasons he\n is very reluctant to speak to party members or even grant any media \ninterview where he would speak off the cuff. No activity is taking place\n in the party at the moment in the state except the uncoordinated \nattempt to project Lyon on the social media through the personal effort \nof some members and his supporters. It appears the APC is not in the \ngovernorship contest in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLyon is also avoiding meeting with APC leaders in Abuja. \nThey are shielding him from meeting with governors and other \nstakeholders of the party. We wonder why he has rebuffed the National \nChairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole\u2019s several invitations to meet with \nthe National Working Committee, governors and other leaders of the \nparty,\u201d Ondekumo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another member of the party, who preferred not to be \nquoted, said there is also the concern that Lyon appears overwhelmed \nalready by the enormity of the challenges before him and that he has \ntold some of his confidants that he would prefer to have been left out \nof the governorship contest so he could concentrate on his security \nbusiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy foist a man who does not know how to campaign and \ncannot imagine himself being governor with all the paraphernalia of that\n office? He is already overwhelmed by the number of people who now \npressure him for money. They have promised him that the Presidency would\n deploy soldiers and other security agencies, which they will use to \nwrite the election result,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called on the party leadership to intervene and resolve \nthe serious contending issues tearing the APC apart in the state, noting\n that the PDP has quickly constituted a reconciliation committee to \naddress the grievances arising from the conduct of its primary election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dickson had said last week that the APC is \u201ca toothless \nbulldog\u201d that lacks the capacity to win any free and fair election in \nthe state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said this while addressing a meeting of the Governorship\n Campaign Advisory Council of the state chapter of the PDP in Yenagoa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governor stated that the APC was known for deploying \nthuggery, ballot stuffing, hijacking of electoral materials and \npolitical violence as strategies for winning elections in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dickson alleged that, \u201cthis much played out even in the \nrecent governorship primary election of the APC when the principle of \nfair play was jettisoned for personal interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He assured stakeholders of the party that all knotty issues would be resolved ahead of the governorship election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking with SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, media aide to Lyon, Gift \nEbiki said, \u201cmy candidate is a moving train. I am sure you know David in\n the Bible. He is the David of Bayelsa politics today. Watch how we will\n win with a landslide. PDP cannot win one local government in the \nelection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another aide to Sylva who does not want to be named boasted\n that the APC would win the November 16 governorship election with a \nwide margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that the PDP candidate, Douye Diri \u201cis too weak to win an election in Bayelsa State.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He maintained the PDP and Dickson made a grave mistake by handpicking a candidate \u201cwho will lose the election gallantly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Daily independent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The internal wrangling in the All Progressives Congress (APC), which led to the inability of the party to field governorship candidates in Rivers and Zamfara states in the last general elections, may repeat itself in the November 16 governorship election in Bayelsa State, if the party does not put its house in order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[63,362],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-politics","tag-apc","tag-timipre-silva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1689,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/1689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}