A former governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva and former Managing
\nDirector of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Timi Alaibe both
\nemerged Governorship Candidate in two separate All Progressive Congress,
\nAPC, Primaries held in Bayelsa State yesterday.<\/p>\n
While Mr. Sylva polled 726 votes out of the 807 Votes to defeat his
\nclosest rival, Alaibe, who got four votes in the Governor Adams
\nOshiomhole’s conducted primary, the former NDDC Managing Director emerged
\nwinner at another Governorship Primary held elsewhere.<\/p>\n
A total of 1,502 delegates were expected at the primary election while
\nthere were 19 aspirants.<\/p>\n
Trouble started following complaints and objections by three of the
\naspirants,Timi Alaibe, Ebitimi Amgbare and Preye Aganaba, that the
\nOshiomole-led Committee had lost control of the process, citing alleged
\nhijack by the state executive of the party loyal to Timipre Sylva.<\/p>\n
According to them, many of the delegates being cleared were in possession
\nof cloned identification papers against the committee\u2019s requirements of an
\nInternational Passport, National Identification Card and Voters\u2019 Card.<\/p>\n
It was gathered that before 8am, thugs invaded the entrance of Samson
\nSiasia Sports Complex, Yenagoa and attacked some party chieftains. The
\nchaos was blamed on the absence of Oshiomhole, the chairman of the
\nElectoral Committee, who arrived at about noon.<\/p>\n
Oshiomhole came in the middle of the confusion, two minutes after one of
\nthe top contenders , Chief Timipre Sylva, arrived. Oshiomhole immediately
\nintervened and held a meeting with members of his committee. After meeting
\nhis committee members, he also met with all the aspirants leading to
\nspeculations that the primary could be cancelled.<\/p>\n
Before the arrival of Governor Oshiomhole, the trio of Timi Alaibe, Preye
\nAganaba and Prince Ebitimi had called for the postponement of the
\nexercise, citing alleged irregularities and intimidation of delegates by
\nhired thugs.<\/p>\n
Condemning the exercise Alaibe said: \u201cThe rancorous accreditation process
\nleading to the primaries was fraught with irregularities, violence,
\nintimidation and complete disrespect for aspirants, agents and party
\nofficials. This is an enactment of negative issues for a party that stands
\non the mantra of change. I think something is missing somewhere and we
\nneed to get it right.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of us, as aspirants had some delegates who are loyal to us
\nthreatened, beaten and wounded since morning. We have a quite number of
\npeople who are not delegates, the real delegates are outside. Some of the
\nfake delegates have identity cards that are cloned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe we need to put a stop to this process. We are going to meet
\nwith the chairman of the committee and we are going to ask for a
\ncancellation of this process to start at some other time so that they can
\nget the security dynamics right and the process and methodology of
\nprimaries right. \u201cWe are disappointed that this can happen in an internal
\nfamily arrangement. For some of us, this process cannot continue and we
\ncannot continue with this process because there are a lot of
\nirregularities and I am totally discontented.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sylva accused the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie Oyegun of
\ndesigning the process in a way that was aimed to deny him of the
\nGovernorship ticket.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell him (Oyegun), he has compromised. In short, I will tell him that he
\nhas compromised. The process was designed to fail and to deny me of my
\ngains in the party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A former governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva and former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Timi Alaibe both emerged Governorship Candidate in two separate All Progressive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n