Leon Usigbe writes on efforts by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ahead of next month’s gubernatorial election, to retain Bayelsa State, against the background of the challenges occasioned by the exclusion of incumbent Governor Timipre Sylva in the election.

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will move soon into Bayelsa State to flag off its gubernatorial campaign under the shadow of a festering crisis stemming from the dumping of incumbent governor, Chief Timipre Sylva, in favour of the House of Representatives member, Honourable Henry Seriake Dickson. The national leadership worked hard over the past months to exclude the governor from the race. Apparently with the tacit support of President Goodluck Jonathan, himself a Bayelsan, Sylva has found himself left in the cold with little or no explanation. Sylva challenged, to no avail, the acting national chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, to come up with reasons for excluding him from the gubernatorial primary election which produced Dickson and was confident that the outcome would not stand.

The governor thought the conduct of the exercise was an imitation of democracy, a ridiculous charade boycotted by most of the statutory delegates. Sylva also responded to a media interview granted by Baraje where the party chairman suggested that the governor had been told why he could not re-contest, saying that there was no time Baraje discuss with him the so-called sins which necessitated his “illegal” exclusion from the primary election. But he has been in the courts seeking orders to stop the PDP from fielding Dickson and reinstating the outcome of the primary election conducted before the extension of his tenure by court.

In spite of that, the PDP has moved on from that primary, just as it has done in the case of four other states affected by the court decision to extend the tenure of their governors, which included Kogi, Adamawa, Sokoto and Cross Rivers. Whereas primary elections had been conducted in the other four states before the April 2011 general election just like Bayelsa, fresh primary elections were ordered by the PDP across board which gave the opportunity for new entrants to participate in the race.  Out of the five states affected, only Kogi came close to the situation in Bayelsa because the candidate who emerged victorious in the pre-April 2011 gubernatorial primary in the state was also dumped for another person who eventually won the election. Even though the Kogi matter has continued in the courts, it did not prevent the PDP from presenting the preferred candidate for the gubernatorial election who went ahead to win the contest. So, for the PDP, there is therefore a precedent. That being the case, how come the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to publish the name of the Dickson as the candidate of the PDP in the first place?

That was the question the party struggled to come to terms with until the intervention, last week, of an Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Gladys Olotu. While the PDP was celebrating court order, Sylva was flustered over what he believed was a mockery of legal process and has dismissed the order as “strange, despicable, and untenable.” In his estimation, the order compelling INEC to recognise Dickson as PDP gubernatorial candidate was granted late at night, under an unusually heavy police presence. It was therefore “a grave insult to the integrity of the judiciary”.

The court decision was immediately followed by the setting up of a 28-man PDP Gubernatorial Campaign Committee for Bayelsa State, led by Vice-President Namadi Sambo, but with membership which included Senate President David Mark; Speaker House of Repres-entatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, all PDP state governors from South-South all PDP members of the National Assembly from the South-South, and former chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Tony Anenih.  Beside these, there are some significant appointees in the committee in the form of three former gubernatorial aspirants under PDP, including Chief Timi Alaibe and Kalango Michael Youppele. Their acceptance to work in the committee would suggest that some of the opposition to Dickson’s candidacy may have retraced their steps back to the mainstream of the ruling party.  

The composition of the campaign committee was an unmistakable message of how serious the PDP viewed the job at hand. The party is divided in the state, with the incumbent governor commanding loyalty of a significant population of party members who may be unwilling to vote for the PDP candidate. There were suggestions that South-South governors and members of the National Assembly from the zone, who are members of the campaign committee, declined to attend the inauguration at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja in solidarity with Governor Sylva. This should worry the party hierarchy. But of course, it has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of the PDP or stop its train from moving to Yenagoa for the commencement of the job of keeping Bayelsa State under the control of the PDP. The leadership of the party gave a clear order to the vice-president to move into the state and demolish opposition in the best way the PDP knows how and, having recently done a similar thing in Kogi State, the PDP is in bullish mood for a repeat in the Bayelsa gubernatorial election.

  A confident Baraje told Sambo during the inauguration of the campaign committee that its assignment was to unite the Bayelsan people and bring victory to the party in the state. He observed that all members of the party had already proclaimed Dickson as the winner. But conscious of the ongoing discontent over the primary, the acting PDP chairman rationalised the process that threw up the party’s standard-bearer by saying the primary were clean, clear and credible.

“We conducted all due processes. Nobody was excluded in the process. The party acted in line with the constitution, of the party and that of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Baraje said.

The PDP national chairman wanted the committee to reestablish the PDP in Bayelsa State and, bring disgruntled members of the party back to its fold and as stated above, “demolish opposition” because “Bayelsa is very important to us. You know why.” This was an apparent reference to the fact that the state, as President Jonathan’s home state cannot afford to be left in the hands of opposition. “We cannot afford to toy with it. The average Nigerian is looking forward to what will happen in Bayelsa. It is the smallest state in the federation but God knows why it has placed it in its position,” he stressed.

Sambo was sure that, with the calibre of people selected to serve in the campaign committee, the PDP should be confident of victory at the polls. “We have taken oath, as the party of the people, to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people. We will not waste time. From today, we shall go into action to make sure we deliver our candidate. We will go and make sure we meet the mandate of the PDP and the expectations of the people of Bayelsa,” he said.

Judging by the antecedent of Bayelsa as a PDP state, it is inconceivable at this time that the party would lose it in this election.

More so, the opposition parties have been unable to show enough presence even in the face of the intra-party crisis that has dogged the PDP over a long time. The party is still hopeful that it could get Governor Sylva, who appears determined to remain in the party, to do a rethink and work for the success of Dickson in the gubernatorial election. Sylva’s endorsement is essential for PDP victory but even in the absence of that, the ruling party appears set for another stroll in the park of Bayelsa State.