From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Aggrieved Bayelsa state stakeholders, under the auspices of All Progressives Congress (APC) Concerned Members, have accused the national leadership of the ruling party of abandoning its governorship candidate, Timipre Sylva and his running mate, Great Joshua Maciver, in the lurch during the off-cycle election.
The stakeholders further alleged that the Bayelsa state chapter of the ruling party was “sacrificed to please some vested interest” during the governorship election in the state.
Speaking at a press conference after handing in petition letter they submitted at the APC national secretariat on Friday in Abuja, spokesman of the group, Otitis Etionumeya, however, urged the party to; “spare nothing in ensuring that the stolen mandate freely given to our party’s governorship candidate and his running mate is duly restored as we can no longer afford to be the sacrificial lamb in every governorship election.
“We also demand that all members of the Bayelsa state chapter of the APC who are known to have engaged in anti-party activities during this election be severely sanctioned to serve as a deterrent otherwise we may just have successfully legitimised anti-party activities in the Bayelsa state chapter of the APC.
“It was George Washington that said that discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable, procures success to the weak, and esteem to all. We find it strange and curious that our party’s candidate was left in the lurch by the party at the national level at a time he needed the support of the party the most, and are therefore inclined to believe that the Bayelsa state chapter of the APC has once again been used as a sacrificial lamb to satisfy some vested interests without any consideration for the party’s teeming members and supporters who have worked assiduously and at great cost for our party’s victory.
“If the Bayelsa state chapter of the APC wasn’t sacrificed to please some vested interests, how do we explain the audacious cancellation of results in areas such as Ogbia, Nembe, Brass, and Southern Ijaw LGAs where our great party had a clear lead until the unfathomable happened, with the INEC jettisoning the respective collation centres where the results ought to have been declared and moved the collation of results to the state collation centre in Yenagoa, where results already declared at polling units with our party in clear lead were cancelled in flagrant contravention of Section 51 of the Electoral Act, 2022?
“Meanwhile, results in Governor Douye Diri’s stronghold of Sagbama, Kolokuma/Okpokuma, and Ekeremor were allowed to be collated at their respective local governments area collation centres.
“We also saw the cancellation of results in other places where the APC was in clear lead across the state, thus exposing the deep-seated conspiracy to deny us victory. We find it rather curious that while INEC hinged its decision to cancel votes gotten by our party on the by-passing of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the electoral umpire looked the other way in the PDP strongholds where the BVAS were reported to have been by-passed despite the protestations from our agents and went ahead to declare the results in favour of the PDP at the designated collation centres.
“It is noteworthy to state that we are not oblivious of the fallacies peddled against our governorship candidate in some quarters by some fifth columnists in our party working in cahoots with the PDP government in the state purporting that our party’s candidate lacked the wherewithal to win the election.
“As can be seen by all, our party’s candidate proved his mettle by garnering over 200,000 votes as against the 175,196 votes allotted to the PDP candidate but sadly, INEC overreached itself and cancelled 84,806 votes scored by our party’s candidate and ended up declaring Douye Diri re-elected as the governor of our dear state,” the stakeholders noted.