.Says he went to Jonathan 16 times over consensus candidate
.Alleges APC forcefully took over state
.Describes associating ex-President with Lyon’s victory as unfortunate
Bayelsa State Governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, has disclosed that he went to the former President Goodluck Jonathan sixteen times to meet him and agree on a candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that both them can hold hand.
Gov Dickson made this known on Tuesday during a press conference held at the Harold Dappah-Biriye Conference Centre, Onopa Villa in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
He said that in an attempt to back a candidate who people perceived is not supportive of him and his restoration government to be the flag bearer of the PDP which he is the leader to humiliate him, he will shoot that candidate down hundred times if he is presented hundred times.
He said: “In this transition, I went to former President Jonathan sixteen times to say, sir can we meet and agree on a candidate both of us will hold the hand. Most of you don’t know. Now if as a governor for eight years and I keep engaging and all I see is an attempt to back a candidate who people perceived is not supportive of me and my system and is backed to be the flag bearer of my party which am leader to humiliate me.
“Look if you present that candidate hundred times, I will shoot it down hundred times. So those who packaged that ambition in that manner didn’t mean well for the person they were supporting and did not also mean well for me, for the party or for the former president because whoever emerges, we are all his people.
“He is our oga but to frame a governorship ambition which was allowed just like this one David Lyon’s victory is now framed around him again, something that he should be distanced from. Some ambitions in our party was framed as a contest between him and of me, it is very bad and I warned and cautioned against it”.
Governor Dickson further stated that what the All Progressives Congress (APC) has shown by the forceful taken over of Bayelsa is a foothold and a desperate act to take over the Niger Delta state currently under PDP control, saying that he is seeing Nigeria moving toward a full blown one party state.
“What they have demonstrated now is their readiness by force of arms to take the South-South states by force willy-nilly. It’s just a question of time. I am completing my eight years as governor; very first governor to achieve that feat in very trying circumstances.
“But the desecration of our democracy that they have come to showcase in Bayelsa is a dress rehearsal of what I think is going to play out between now and 2023. My dear friends, my dear colleagues and fellow Nigerians, we are in for a reality of a one party state.
“For APC to have the effrontery to think of coming to this state where in a free and fair election they can’t win anything. People talk of a senator, they didn’t win that seat. It was the same way; soldiers, security they lost everywhere. In that senatorial district, they lost Ogbia, they lost Brass but they wrote several results and full accredited PVC numbers. So what is the investment of our PVCs for if I may ask INEC?
“So that is what they have now expanded and I see Nigeria moving toward a full blown one party state and how well our democracy will survive in that mist is an open question. The people contesting are Bayelsans. David Lyon is a Bayelsan. If he had won in a free and fair, peaceful process by my values and my style, I will direct the candidate and the party to call him to congratulate him.
“But you cannot spill blood without regard to the sanctity of human lives in Nembe, without respect for the dignity of the people in Southern Ijaw and Ogbia and say you have produced a governor-elect and they are doing all that they are doing to legitimize. But in this state any candidate we support and back, wins an election on ground. We never lost an election. This was not an election that the PDP and her candidate lost.
“Wherever people stood to vote, we won. If they won, the difference is very clear and you don’t need to win everywhere to win but the APC is on rampage and I wish our country and our democracy the best of luck. But for me, for us who are democrats by choice even it is not convenient, we have to remain as democrats.
“The level that they went is too brazing because if we are in a contest and one party has result sheets prewritten and flown and brought into Yenagoa. They brought written results to this place; predetermined figures and used the military to shield off every other person and gave the collation officers to work with them. Collation officers that were selected only from University of Benin.
“So the APC from day one had a grand design to take over Bayelsa willy-nilly. It doesn’t matter who is flag bearer, that one is just self-propaganda to divert attention and to create justification. Having committed this brazing robbery, they have now switched to the face of justifying it. That is why you saw them take their candidate to the former President Jonathan and his wife. It is a desperate act”.
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