Sylva, Alaibe Emerge APC Governorship Candidates In Parallel Primaries

Source: pointblanknews.com

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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