Sylva File

The dust raised by the governorship primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party in Bayelsa State on Saturday has not settled. MIKE ODIEGWUin this report asks whether indeed there was a contest.

AN entertainment mogul and entrepreneur, Ben Bruce, may have been tricked into joining the race for the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party in Bayelsa State. Though he did not make much progress in what many political pundits described as political misadventure, the former boss of the Nigerian Television Authority dropped an indelible remark shortly after he was disqualified by the party. He said, “I believed in my heart as a democrat when I entered the race for the governorship of Bayelsa State that the race would be fair, democratic and competitive but it has now become clear that it is not a competition but a coronation. I want my followers and the people of Bayelsa to know that to quit is revolting to every instinct in my body. I am not a quitter but I was not allowed to run.   I was eliminated before the race started.”

Maybe, if Bruce had known he would not have spent N6m to procure an intent form from his party. Foresighted observers who were following the intriguing power-play in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, had earlier known that the self-acclaimed largest political group in Africa was up to something. They knew that as part of preparations for the election, the party had anointed a candidate and that its scheduled primary election might be a smokescreen to give the process democratic credibility.

One of the aspirants, Mr. Henry Dickson, who tagged himself the ‘anointed one’ and was believed to have the backing of President Goodluck Jonathan, agreed with Bruce days before the election that he was going actually going to be crowned on election day. Dickson, who represents Sagbama/Ekeremor Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives told journalists five days to the primary that he was hopeful of victory.

“I am very hopeful; very optimistic of victory and by the grace of God with the massive support I have among the party members, the primary will be a confirmation. Well, somebody referred to it as an impending coronation. I cannot agree more. We are not scared of coronation,” he said.

Perhaps the hope of Dickson would not have been realised on November 19, the day the controversial primary election of the party was held. There were aggrieved voices clamouring for cancellation of the rescheduled election. Vocal among them were the protests of five out of the seven cleared candidates for the election that the poll should be suspended on the grounds that the ward congresses designed to elect delegates for the primary did not hold.

Besides, the state governor, Chief Timipre Sylva, who was edged out of the exercise, had obtained a contentious order from the Federal High Court, Abuja, restraining the party from going ahead with the exercise. However, PDP circumvented all the internal wrangling and legal barriers to hold the exercise amid tight security at the Samson Siasia Sports Complex, Yenagoa.

But preparations for the election revealed that all was not well with the party and the state. The state, especially Yenagoa, the capital was immediately turned into a battle ground. Stern-looking and armed security operatives comprising soldiers, riot policemen, State Security Service and men of Bomb Disposal Unit were deployed in the state from Delta, Rivers and other neighbouring states. Most public facilities including the state secretariat of the party were cordoned off. New checkpoints with a distance of a few metres were suddenly created. Motorists and pedestrians were subjected to continual stop-and-search operations just as many patrol vans and Armoured Personnel Carriers traversed the town. In fact, observers concluded that the state was under siege. The same security networks surrounded the venue of the election with officials of paramilitary agencies, especially the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, adding to the network.

However, the election was devoid of its usual colour and excitements as all the statutory delegates including the President were absent.  Members of the state House of Assembly, federal lawmakers from the state, all the eight local government chairmen and many of the councillors from various wards in the state also stayed away. While Jonathan claimed that the political situation in the country kept him away, hundreds of other statutory delegates, who described the exercise as illegal hinged their absence on the rancorous court injunction.

A statement signed by 157 of the delegates including the Speaker of the state assembly, Mr. Nestor Binabo, said, “As law-abiding party members and true believers in the rule of law, we shall not participate in a process that is clearly contemptuous of a judicial order, capable of bringing the judiciary to disrepute. We call on all party members to obey the order so as to avoid a degeneration of the tensed political situation in Bayelsa State as we are already witnessing.”

Despite their absence, the acting state Chairman of the party, Mr. James Dugo, declared the event open and appealed to members of the party to put behind them “the intractable problems of political violence, thuggery and general insecurity that are trying to give the state a political black spot”. He said the event was a demonstration that democracy and development were crucial to the existence of the state. He appealed to all the key players to imbibe the virtues of true democracy and the spirit of sportsmanship. Turning to the delegates, he said, “I urge all delegates to conduct themselves in peaceful and mature manner devoid of rancour and acrimony”. To the aspirants, he said, “I enjoin you to embrace the spirit of sportsmanship, accept defeat and congratulate the winner. Let us rally support for who will emerge as the winner eventually and build synergy and consensus together so that we can clinch victory at the general election in February next year”.

Dugo’s appeal, however, aggravated the deep-seated grievances in four of the aspirants who immediately after the Chairman of the Governorship Primary Election Committee, Navy Capt. Caleb Olubolade (retd), introduced the voting process sprang to their feet. Christopher Enai, Orufa Boloubor, Austine Febo, and Duokpola Amaebi besieged the canopy stand of the committee and questioned the propriety of the election.

Amaebi told members of the panel that it was wrong for the party to go ahead with the exercise without resolving complaints arising from the ward congress that led to the emergence of the delegates. He said the party had earlier assured them that their complaints contained in a protest letter they sent to the National Working Committee would be investigated and resolved.

He said, “The party set up an appeal panel to investigate the issue we raised that ward congresses were not conducted. The panel visited the state yesterday (Friday) and promised that they would make their reports known to the party in 48 hours. But now the report of the panel has not been completed, yet the party is holding a congress. That is not what we expected. We expected that the party would have received the report first before going ahead with the congress.”

He said the action of the party was deceitful and observed that most of the delegates wore T-shirts bearing the party’s logo and symbol which he said was fraudulent and unacceptable. He also told members of the panel that federal, state lawmakers, local government chairmen and the councillors who were supposed to be delegates shunned the event because of unresolved disputes.

Enai also gave graphic details of how they were allegedly deceived by members of the ward congress committee and said there was no basis for the primary. Corroborating the position of Enai, Orufa complained, “In respect of the congresses that were supposed to have held on Monday, the party set up the appeal panel to investigate all our complaints and the appeal panel came yesterday and we gave our own side of the story.

“They promised to write a report to the NWC before the primary but to our surprise, there is no report and we are seeing delegates right here. We don’t know where the delegates are coming from. For that reason we are boycotting the election.”

All the efforts of Olubolade to pacify the aggrieved aspirants proved abortive as three of them excluding Amaebi walked out of the venue. Olubolade while appealing to them said, “I have listened to you but I want to emphasise that this governorship panel that was set up is not saddled to take that complaint. I can only note it and I have noted it. I have assured you that I will pass it across to the leadership of the party. I want to appeal to you that as party loyalists who had been accredited for this election, you cannot go back. You have to conclude the process. So I want to appeal to you that all issues cannot be solved on this table. What we can solve is the issue that we are managing. Anything beyond that will have to be passed on to the leadership of the party”.

However, the angry aspirants left the venue of the event. That was the bitterness that characterised the primary election in which Dickson won with 365 votes leaving six votes to be shared by Kalango Michael (one vote); Amaebi (one); Febo (two) and Fred Ekiyegha (two), Enai and Bolourbor got no vote.

Though Dickson in his acceptance speech promised to reconcile all aggrieved members of the party including the protesting aspirants, pundits observe that the aftermath of the election, will confirm if he is capable of doing that

-Punch

Posted by admin on Nov 23 2011. Filed under Bayelsa, Governors, Headlines, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry