Bayelsa Election: The Intriguing Story of Rigging, Humiliation Plots as political Foes Fight Dirty

By Ebere Levi

Multiple party sources at the weekend spoke of the battle cry within the All Progressives Congress, APC, for Bayelsa state. The sources revealed APC’s multi- dimensional rigging plans and options.

However, the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Bayelsa, party insiders inform, will not only beat the APC to its game, but will ensure it suffers the kind of a bitter and crushing defeat no party has ever suffered in recent history. “We will humiliate them out of existence. After November 16, APC will be history in Bayelsa”, a ranking PDP egghead boasted.

Bayelsans will go to the poll this Saturday to elect a replacement for Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of the PDP, whose eight year tenure elapses in February 2020.

Flying the PDP flag in the gubernatorial contest is a serving Senator, Duoye Diri, who represents Bayelsa Central Senatorial district. The APC candidate is, the politically little known David Lyon, said to be an oil magnet.

Dickson, Slyva: A Proxy War

The Bayelsa election is a renewed proxy battle for political supremacy between former governor Timipre Sylva, now Minister of state for Petroleum, and governor Dickson. Both will be going back to the trenches to fight for the soul of Bayelsa, using their proxies, or better put, godsons as cannon folders.

Watchers of Bayelsa politics say a victory for Diri means a continuation of the firm hold the Restoration Group, Dickson’s formidable political movement, has on Bayelsa PDP and the state’s politics in general.

On the other hand, Lyon’s victory, The Source was told, translates to a back door continuation of Slyva’s governorship which was abbreviated in 2012 following Dickson emergence.

“Lyon will be dejure governor and, Slyva, the defacto governor. Lyon is a political neophyte and has limited education. If he wins the election, then Sylva is back to office.

He will become something akin to Bola Tinubu in Lagos. In fact, in addition to his Petroleum Ministry portfolio, Sylva will be Bayelsa’s own “Jagaban” if his godson wins”, a party chieftain loyal to one of the aspirants Lyon defeated to pick the APC ticket, told the magazine.

Another APC chief opposed to the APC candidate described Lyon as a wrong choice and Slyva a puppeteer. His words: “Of course,Sylva is still pained he lost to Dickson in 2012 and 2015. He wants to make a political statement and relaunch himself politically with Lyon’s victory. But Lyon is a stranger to politics and leadership. He has no experience. He is a wrong choice. He is a puppet and Slyva the puppeteer”.

Give us Bayelsa or We Die

Sources confided in this Magazine that the National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiohmole, beside other reasons APC will be rolling out arsenals to capture Bayelsa by all means, wants to demonstrate that as a South south son, his political clout is not limited to Edo.

“Our National Chairman sees the Bayelsa election as a personal project. He wants Bayelsa in APC’s kitty to prove he is on ground in South south, one of the sources said.

Another source said: “Our target, before the 2019 elections, was to snatch, at least, two oil rich states in this zone. Sure, we need the money. We have to finance the party to keep it alive , so we wanted those oil rich South south states badly. But then, we lost Rivers to internal squabbles, we were roundly defeated in Akwa Ibom, in Delta Great Ogboru, despite his boasts, was not great enough to dislodge governor Okowa and the PDP, and in Cross River, it was a crushing defeat for our party also as result of internal wrangling.

APC in the South south is already gasping for breathe. If we are defeated in Bayelsa on Saturday, the party in the zone will go into coma, and may never recover. It will die”, one of the sources said.

Operation Total and Final Humiliation of Jonathan

Impeccable sources within the national leadership of the APC have told the magazine that while the reason a section of the party is interested in rigging the Bayelsa gubernatorial election is solely to have an APC governor in Yenogoa, another section, mainly made up of some Northern and South western irredentists with burning hatred for former President Goodluck Jonathan, is interested in the clinical humiliation of the Bayelsa born ex- president who in 2015 conceded defeat and yielded power to the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari.

Many Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba elements in the APC, it has been learnt, habour unexplained hatred for the former President and have, at every juncture, tried to impinge on his integrity and down play his achievements while in office.

The Source gathered that some politicians in Bayelsa who nurse deep- seated animosity against the former Nigerian leader for, allegedly, hurting their political careers through his actions and inactions when he held sway as the state governor, vice president and later President are also in this league.

The coming election, the magazine was told, presents an opportunity for them to portray Jonathan as not only despised by his own people, but also a political feather weight who has no political base.

“To this end, what is being planned is an unprecedented rigging that will see Jonathan totally losing, not just the state but his polling unit, ward and local government in an outrageous scale never before suffered by any political leader” a source privy to the plan reveals.

APC, Bayelsa and Rigging Options: “Osunization” of Bayelsa top on the Agenda

Top on the list of APC’s rigging options in the election, according to a top party insider, is the Osun model which was used to knock the PDP, on the cusp of victory, off the radar in the state’s gubernatorial election September last year.

If the Osun template is eventually adopted, our sources alleged, heavy rigging in favour of Lyon will take place in his Southern Ijaw local government area and senatorial district to either put him ahead of his rival, Diri, or place him, almost, at par with him. Then, results in some wards, especially in the strongholds of Diri and the PDP will be cancelled.

This will be followed by the declaration of the entire election as inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and scheduling of a supplementary election.

The supplementary election will then, allegedly, follow the Osun pattern: Brazen disenfranchisement of PDP/ Diri supporters through violence and intimidation.

With only Lyon/APC voters voting, he will now achieve the constitutional requirement and subsequently declared winner.

There are, however, those within the party, it has been learnt, rooting for outright victory on the first ballot.

They, therefore, allegedly favour using compromised INEC staff, security agencies and some Niger Delta militants to achieve this.

PDP’s Counter Plans

The PDP is keeping measures to counter the alleged APC’s rigging options close to its chest. A top party official who spoke to this magazine in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa state capital, repeated what a party chieftain said above. Namely that the party will teach the APC a bitter lesson, beat it in its own rigging game, and humiliate it.

“We have no business with rigging because Bayelsa is PDP and PDP Bayelsa. APC exists on paper here. APC is paper Tiger here. So, nobody in the PDP is talking about rigging, but we won’t allow the APC rig. We Will stop them”, he said.

Diri himself writes the APC off: “I don’t see our opponents as being so strong on ground to defeat the PDP. If we have a free, fair and transparent election, the APC cannot win even a councillorship election in Bayelsa State. It is all the hype about federal might by using security apparatus to intimidate or using INEC to write results. Our appeal is that the security agencies must be professional. INEC must remain an unbiased umpire. If there is that fair playing field, the opponents are neither here nor there to contest in this election”

Duoye, Lyon: Unequally Yoked?

Lyon David: Lyon is greenhorn in politics.His chronographed emergence as the APC flag bearer for Saturday’s election was his first major participation in politics. Aside being a business man and oil contractor, Lyon has not held any political office. And is not known beyond his oil pipeline survelliance contract.

His critics rue that he lacks the political experience, the requisite education and qualification to rule a state like Bayelsa.

Equally, apart from being a close associate and godson of Sylva , analysts insist Lyon does not know the ABC of politics, lacks the personality clout expected of a governor, and is hardly in the news.

Lyon is also said to be publicity shy as he seldomly makes public speeches or appear in public to make comments. Critics attribute this to his alleged deficiency in the English language, reason, they said made him shun the Bayelsa Governorship Debate.

Though an NCE holder, the APC candidate is said to be poor at good spoken and written English, hence his alleged resort to pidgin English in most of his conversations.

Duoye Diri: Before berthing in politics, Diri had transversed many other areas of human endeavour.

An educationist, the PDP governorship candidate, prior to going to the Senate, was a member of the House of Representatives. Diri obtained his Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) at the College of Education in Port-Harcourt, Rivers state in 1985. He got his Bachelors of Education degree in Political Science at the University of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State in 1990.

Senator Diri taught in several Government Schools in the rural area in the Old Rivers State.

He was the first National Organizing Secretary of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), the foremost organization of the Ijaw Nation. He was also the Executive Secretary, Centre for Youth Development in Bayelsa State, 2000-2002.

Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Disciplinary Council, Bayelsa State (2012).

Deputy Chief of Staff, Government House, 2012,Principal Executive Secretary (2013-2014).

Federal House of Representatives to represent Kolokuma, Opokuma, and Yenagoa Federal Constituency, 2015- 2019 and Senator representing Bayelsa West Senatorial district, June 2019 till date.

Common Denominator

While Lyon named Vice Chairman Senate Committe on Special Duties and Gas Resources Committee respectively, Senator Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo, representing Bayelsa East, as his running mate, Diri picked the senator representing Bayelsa West Senatorial District, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpor, as running mate.

Senator Ewhrudjakpor and Governor Dickson are from the same Bayelsa West, fuelling speculations that the Senator’s controversial emergence as Diri’s running mate was orchestrated by the out- going governor so that he (Dickson) will replace him in the Senate.

The out going governor was in the House of Representatives before contesting and winning election as governor in 2012.