Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Bayelsa Governor, Seriake Dickson, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state are locked in a war of words over the November 2 governorship election.
The governor fired the first salvo when he said the APC does not have the ability to win election in the state.
Dickson also said the party lacks structure and lambasted it for not being a political party but ‘killer, terrorist organisation.’
In its reaction, the APC, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Doifie Buokoribo, said Dickson’s bitter and abusive language is crude, infantile and extreme, and added that his statement is “unbefitting of a high-ranking officer of a state.”
Buokoribo added that “Dickson and his gang in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have always proved to be a club of visionless little minds with neither programme nor strategy, save crude mudslinging against APC and its leaders,” said no amount of deceit employed against Bayelsans would save his party.
“Governor Dickson is free to continue to live in denial. But, we know that his days and that of his party, the PDP, in our state are numbered.
“For almost eight years, Dickson subjected the people of Bayelsa state to a regime of fear, war and terror. He spread hunger, pain and poverty in the land. He denied civil servants their legitimate wages and allowances.
“He even made the state incommodious for business by refusing to fix electricity, water and other basics. The once beautiful land of Yenagoa became known as the garbage capital of the world under his watch.
“Our people are waiting with their permanent voter’s cards for Dickson and his anointed candidate on election day.
“In his anxiety to hide his insensitivity, governor Dickson has now lifted the ban he placed on promotions and the payment of promotion benefits in the state civil service. But that would not save him. He has reached the end of the road, and no amount of petty mudslinging or denial of reality will change the people’s stand against him and his party,” Buokoribo said.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Air Force is set to commence flight operations into the Bayelsa International Passenger/Cargo Airport; to boost confidence in airline operators, that the airport is safe.
Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Mobility Command, Air Vice Marshal Uburufih Peter-Uzezi, who disclosed this when he visited governor Dickson, at Government House, Yenagoa, yesterday, said NAF flight operations would demonstrate to other airline operators that the facility is safe.
Peter-Uzezi commended Dickson for his developmental strides in every sector of the state, including the construction of the airport with the longest runway in the country and for partnering the Air Force and its sister organisations.
Dickson, in his remarks also said, by June, commercial flights from Abuja and Lagos would commence, and added that the state government has intensified efforts to complete fencing of the airport, to prevent animals from straying onto the runway.
The governor commended the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, for the partnership to secure the airport by deploying its personnel to the facility.
He also gave thumbs-up to officers and men of the Air Force for their exemplary conduct and professionalism during the last election.
Dickson said personnel of the Air Force have shown, in clear terms, that they are disciplined, well-trained and are alive; not only to their duties, the people and country but to their own code of conduct.