A former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva, has emerged the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the December 5 governorship election in the state after winning the party’s primary.
Sylva polled 981 votes to defeat his distant rival, Mr. Godknows Powell, who scored 39 votes in a peaceful primary conducted at the state secretariat of the party in Yenagoa on Wednesday.
The primary was conducted by a seven-member electoral committee led by Brig. Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (retd.).
With this victory, Sylva will face incumbent Governor Seriake Dickson, who defeated him in the 2011 governorship election.
A two-time former member of the House of Representatives, Warman Ogoriba scored 28 votes.
Another aspirant, Diekivie Ikiogha, scored 22 votes while Ebite Williams got nine votes and Charity Valdego scored seven votes. Messrs Preye Aganaba and Febo Austin scored eight and seven votes respectively, among others.
Out of 1,147 total votes cast at the poll, the chairman of the panel declared 1,120 votes valid and declared 27 votes invalid.
The rescheduled primary was peaceful and largely devoid of rancour and violence which characterised the initial exercise that was held on September 22 at the Samson Siasia Sports Complex.
Delegates conducted themselves in an orderly manner from 11pm on Tuesday till Wednesday afternoon when they cast their votes after accreditation.
There was, however, a brief protest at the venue of the election when Ikiogha led some aggrieved aspirants to the area, accusing the panel of shutting them out of the exercise.
For about an hour, Ikiogha and some other aggrieved aspirants kept the panel chairman busy with their complaints.
Ikiogha said the panel came to the state without meeting with them to intimate them on the modalities for the election, alleging that the committee came with a mandate to stop them from partaking in the exercise.
He said, “This election is worse than the previous exercise that was cancelled. We are aware that a new list of delegates was compiled the previous night for the purpose of the election.
This is not the change we advocated for. We are appealing for the cancellation of the election.”
But the committee chairman insisted that the process was transparent and appealed to the aggrieved aspirants to maintain the peace.
After lodging their complaints, the angry aspirants walked out of the venue of the exercise and refused to come back till the end of the election
Sylva, who was declared winner of the primary around 4pm by Dan-Alli, thanked the delegates for electing him for second time.
He also commended the electoral committee members for a job well, saying that politicians still had had a lot to learn from the military.
Apparently alluding to Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, Sylva lampooned the governor for alleged inability to conduct the primary.
He said, “I am very happy today to accept this victory that you have given to me for the second time. I will like to tell all of you today that this is only the beginning of the journey. Today, I have seen that we politicians have a lot to learn from the military.
“What a great and serving governor of a great state of this country was incapable of doing just a few days ago has been achieved by a retired general and his team. This tells me that we have a lot to learn from the military.”
Meanwhile, one of the topmost contenders for the APC governorship race, Chief Ndutimi Alaibe, withdrew from the contest.
Alaibe, a former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, said he withdrew from the contest in the interest of the party.
Alaibe, in a statement on Wednesday morning, entitled, ‘For the sake of our party, I withdraw,’ recalled with nostalgia the zeal, enthusiasm and hope with which thousands of Bayelsans made a statement in the direction of change in August, 2015.
He also recalled a mental replay of the occasion wherein a qualitative representation of the leadership of the APC ushered in respected leaders and members from their then party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
He said that singular event had been phenomenal just as its true meaning and direction had all exuded confidence, unity of purpose, cohesion, collectivism and courage.
Alaibe said, “As one of such leaders who took that historic decision, I thought of giving a further bite to my burning desire to extricate the state from abysmal leadership failure.
“Therefore, my aspiration to be governor after series of consultations was to rekindle our collective hope and lift the state beyond its current state of decay under the PDP.
“Regardless, I am not oblivious of the fundamental fact that we all need a virile, united, cohesive and collaborative APC to bring about our desires to fruition. Not only do we need this, APC deserves every sacrifice, including personal interests, to arrive at the envisaged destination come February, 2016.
“This is more so that both as individual leaders and as a party, the need to avoid a situation of crisis that the PDP might inadvertently reap from cannot be over-emphasised.”
He said having carefully examined the circumstances that had trailed the governorship primary of the APC in Bayelsa, he had come to the conclusion that pushing his ambition beyond that point carried, alongside it, some collateral consequences.
He said though he was confident he had the required support of his admirers and supporters as well as the needed backing of Bayelsans to govern them, the hurdles set on the way of the noble project were capable of overheating the APC in Bayelsa.
He said, “In another vein, the virtuous path to take is that virtuous one in which personal interest are sacrificed for the common good, whether for the APC or the state in general. This is the path I chose in the light of the prevailing circumstances. I therefore withdraw from the governorship primary contest.
“This decision is taken in the interest of our party especially as we face the task of the common challenge of unseating the PDP in the state come December 5.”
