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Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Aggrieved members of the All Progressive Congress (APC) from Bayelsa Central and Bayelsa West Senatorial Districts have forwarded a petition to the Chairman, Caretaker Committee of the party and Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni over the conduct of the primaries election to pick candidates of the party.
The members under the aegis of APC Constitutional and Due Process Vanguard of the State chapter including Hon Godwin Sidi, Hon Dressman, Frank Oputu,(Bayelsa Central), Hon Peter Ozobo, Ebide Brown and Moses Hitler from Bayelsa West alleged that former governor and Minister of State Petroluem, Chief Timipre Sylva imposed candidates on the party.
The aggrieved APC members who wrote the APC Caretaker Committee Chairman through their lawyer, Mr. Rueben Egwaba called on the Caretaker Committee Chairman to stop Sylva and his group from imposing candidates of their choice on the party to avert what they described an impending disaster against the party in the bye elections.
According to them, Sylva who is neither from Bayelsa Central nor West where the senatorial bye elections are scheduled to take place is working to impose candidates who recently defected to the APC from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and have not even spent the requisite number of days to qualify them for nomination for elective positions.
They expressed fears that unresolved lingering disagreements coupled with imposition of candidates by Sylva without consulting leaders and stakeholders from the affected areas would affect the electoral fortunes of the party
The group pleaded with the Caretaker Committee Chairman to take urgent steps to intervene in the plot by Sylva to impose a former Deputy Governor of State, Chief Peremobowei Ebebi, from Ekeremor local Government Area as the Party’s candidate for Bayelsa West in violation of an existing agreement on zoning in the district irrespective of party affiliation.
According to them, violation of the long standing agreement between Ekeremor and Sagbama to share the senatorial slot and the House of Representative seat would not be in the interest of the APC.
They stressed that fielding a candidate from Ekeremor as the party’s candidate for the Senatorial election when an Ekeremor man, Hon Fred Agbedi, occupies the House of Reps seat would put the party in a difficult situation.
The group which threatened legal action against the planned wilful imposition of candidates alleged that “the Sylva loyalists are bent on pushing this provocation through fraudulent primaries where figure will just be collated and allocated to people.”
