Sylva Dismisses PDP's Submission to INEC As Non-Issue

Source: huhuonline.com
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Following reports that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the name of the aspirant who emerged from its recent compromised primary in Bayelsa State as governorship

candidate for next year's election, the Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva, had said the party's decision does not change his commitment to the governorship race and the reality that the PDP is engaged in a charade whose product cannot stand.

Sylva, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Doifie Ola, said, 'This unfortunate decision of the PDP is condemnable in every democratic sense. But it is all part of a serial illegality that began since preparation for the governorship election in the state gathered momentum and reached a frightening height with a 19 November  primary held against the order of a competent court of law, the wise counsel of a wide segment of civilised humanity within and outside Nigeria, and despite the absence of INEC, the body statutorily mandated to monitor and confer legitimacy on such exercises. Men of conscience within and outside our shores have since risen in condemnation of the absurdly pointless act of November 19 in Yenagoa and it is only natural that anything emanating from that process cannot stand. Nothing has changed from this truth.

'As for me and my able deputy, Rt. Hon. Werinipre Seibarugu, we remain committed to the February 2012 governorship contest in Bayelsa State under our great party, the Peoples Democratic Party. We are confident that the truth will emerge at the end of the day and, by the grace of God and the will of the people, we will be re-elected.

'The regrettable misadventure of PDP does not change the fact that we are in court challenging the illegal conduct of PDP in the Bayelsa State governorship race and it is only the court that will have the final say in the matter.

'Those trying to plant the seed of illegality at INEC must realise that Nigeria is a country governed under laws and PDP, the biggest political party in the country, cannot afford to be a lawless fiefdom within the democracy.'

Sylva appealed to his teeming supporters in Bayelsa State and beyond, and all lovers of democracy, to remain calm and positive, saying, 'We are confident in the ability of the judiciary to return sanity to the political situation in our state, so that together again we shall continue the patriotic task of taking our state to the next level.'   

'Persons who seek to benefit from the democratic space should not be afraid to submit their whims and atavistic instincts to the democratic crucible of the law. The resort to impunity cannot stand.'

Sylva questioned the basis on which INEC could accept a candidate from the 19 November primary in Bayelsa State, saying, 'Even though INEC has not announced a shift in its well advised rejection of the November 19 charade, it is only instructive to warn that INEC, a critical institutional bulwark against political arbitrariness, must resist the temptation to be drawn into the mucky waters of autocratic partisanship, which those who nurse a morbid fear for democracy and free choice have reduced the Bayelsa governorship race