Sylva, Alaibe Emerge APC Governorship Candidates In Parallel Primaries
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 Congress,
APC, Primaries held in Bayelsa State yesterday.
While Mr. Sylva polled 726 votes out of the 807 Votes to defeat his
closest rival, Alaibe, who got four votes in the Governor Adams
Oshiomhole’s conducted primary, the former NDDC Managing Director emerged
winner at another Governorship Primary held elsewhere.
A total of 1,502 delegates were expected at the primary election while
there were 19 aspirants.
Trouble started following complaints and objections by three of the
aspirants,Timi Alaibe, Ebitimi Amgbare and Preye Aganaba, that the
Oshiomole-led Committee had lost control of the process, citing alleged
hijack by the state executive of the party loyal to Timipre Sylva.
According to them, many of the delegates being cleared were in possession
of cloned identification papers against the committee's requirements of an
International Passport, National Identification Card and Voters' Card.
It was gathered that before 8am, thugs invaded the entrance of Samson
Siasia Sports Complex, Yenagoa and attacked some party chieftains. The
chaos was blamed on the absence of Oshiomhole, the chairman of the
Electoral Committee, who arrived at about noon.
Oshiomhole came in the middle of the confusion, two minutes after one of
the top contenders , Chief Timipre Sylva, arrived. Oshiomhole immediately
intervened and held a meeting with members of his committee. After meeting
his committee members, he also met with all the aspirants leading to
speculations that the primary could be cancelled.
Before the arrival of Governor Oshiomhole, the trio of Timi Alaibe, Preye
Aganaba and Prince Ebitimi had called for the postponement of the
exercise, citing alleged irregularities and intimidation of delegates by
hired thugs.
Condemning the exercise Alaibe said: “The rancorous accreditation process
leading to the primaries was fraught with irregularities, violence,
intimidation and complete disrespect for aspirants, agents and party
officials. This is an enactment of negative issues for a party that stands
on the mantra of change. I think something is missing somewhere and we
need to get it right.
“Some of us, as aspirants had some delegates who are loyal to us
threatened, beaten and wounded since morning. We have a quite number of
people who are not delegates, the real delegates are outside. Some of the
fake delegates have identity cards that are cloned.
“I believe we need to put a stop to this process. We are going to meet
with the chairman of the committee and we are going to ask for a
cancellation of this process to start at some other time so that they can
get the security dynamics right and the process and methodology of
primaries right. “We are disappointed that this can happen in an internal
family arrangement. For some of us, this process cannot continue and we
cannot continue with this process because there are a lot of
irregularities and I am totally discontented.”
Sylva accused the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie Oyegun of
designing the process in a way that was aimed to deny him of the
Governorship ticket.
“Tell him (Oyegun), he has compromised. In short, I will tell him that he
has compromised. The process was designed to fail and to deny me of my
gains in the party,” he said.
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