PDP Is Death In Bayelsa State

I knew things were not going according to plan for the PDP when I read that the APC candidate in Bayelsa state, David Lyon, had commended INEC for the peaceful conduct of election in the state

Now, if you're familiar with Nigerian politics, any candidate who comes out to praise INEC is usually the person leading, or they are sure of winning. In the political atmosphere we find ourselves living in today, the losing party is always the one denouncing the conduct of elections, violence, vote buying and massive rigging.

To confirm my fears, it wasn't up to some hours later when Governor Dickson came out to condemn the election, citing violence, rigging and ballot box snatching as reasons. At that moment, I knew it was all over for the PDP candidate.

It's one thing for an opposing candidate seeking to gain power condemn an election, and it's another different thing entirely for the party on seat to condemn an election.

It didn't take long before the results started coming in... PDP was losing heavily!

One would wonder why, though. I mean, we all know Bayelsa is the state that has the smallest local government in Nigeria, but having to lose a state where the former president, Goodluck Jonathan comes from, shows that something must have gone wrong somewhere. I mean, Governor Dickson won his second term reelection bid on the PDP platform, even when the APC had come into power, by defeating Timipre Sylvia of the APC party.

So, I rung up my friends from Bayelsa and they revealed to me that the reason for the apparent loss of the PDP state to the APC was because, Governor Dickson had imposed his candidate on the people.

Everything then made sense to me; the APC candidate receiving blessings from Goodluck Jonathan's mother, the lack of major PDP stakeholders going to Bayelsa to campaign for the party, Jonathan and Patience's silence throughout the campaign period... I now understood why.

It's really sad that politicians don't understand how politics work under a democratic system of government. You don't impose candidates on the people! You allow the masses choose their own candidate.

This is the same thing that happened in Ekiti state, that saw Fayose lose his political relevance in the state and Nigeria at large. The same scenario also happened in Oyo state that saw Seyi Makinde take over. The outgoing governors of these states, Ekiti and Oyo, the former being a PDP state and the latter an APC state, had them lose power to the opposition, because they tried imposing their candidates on the people.

One thing is for sure; no matter how much money you think you've got or have to spend, once your party members are against you, they'll do everything to ensure you don't win! They will fight you tooth and nail and change the voters mind against you, especially when the person you're bringing in is not relatively known. Let's face it; those people who lost out in the primaries also have their own supporters. If they felt cheated, they'd turn their followers against you !

It's safe to say PDP is dead in Bayelsa state, because it's going to take a long time before APC would lose power again in Bayelsa, unless of course, they make the same mistake Dickson made.