Bayelsa Polls: APC primaries is a show of shame – PDP
Felix Okoye
Nigeria’s main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on all the political parties to put their houses in order to avoid a repeat of what happened during the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primaries conducted in Yenagoa.
The party also called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that the forthcoming election scheduled for December 5 takes place in accordance with the law and in line with election best practices.
PDP Chairman in Bayelsa state, David Serena-Dokubo-Spiff, who poured out these during interview with journalists in Yenagoa on Wednesday added “The PDP in Bayelsa State is apprehensive that if APC aspirants in the state can mutually trade such wanton violence among themselves, they are in every likelihood going to unleash even more devilish attacks on our party during the impending governorship elections. Needless to say, such an eventuality will not augur well for the peace and tranquility of our state.
“What must go down in the history of the APC in the state as the “ Black Tuesday” is only a dress rehearsal of what the APC plans to do on December 5, 2015. Such brazen display of paraphernalia of violence and cheating must have no place in our electoral process and President Buhari’s avowed ‘New Nigeria”, the Bayelsa State chairman of PDP”.
While describing the violence generated by the APC primaries, as a show of shame, the PDP said, what transpired at the venue of the primaries represented a hint of what the APC in Bayelsa State has always known.
He said, “Violence is the other name of some of the APC aspirants; we are not surprised that the primaries ended that way. Many of the APC bigwigs Bayelsa state are the real merchants of violence, venom and villainy. They are the same ones who, within recent memory, elevated criminality and lawlessness, even from out of swamps to the precincts of Government House”.
“They are the same ones, who, without compunction, shamelessly aspire to reign again, albeit in an atmosphere of anarchy. What the world saw is only a tiny bit of what the PDP government in Bayelsa state has been grappling with year-in-year-out.”
Serena-Dokubo-Spiff warned all desperate politicians and potential trouble makers to desist from heating up the polity because “any person or persons, no matter how highly placed or connected will be visited with the full wrath of law.”
According to him, since the PDP is made up of law abiding citizens, “we are thereby calling on the leadership of the APC in Bayelsa state to borrow a leaf from us and our principle of internal democracy.”
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to direct all relevant security agencies to ensure that Bayelsans are spared the anguish of political violence and wanton destruction of lives and property.
“Mr. President must not be seen to encourage or tacitly support electoral violence and brigandage, and must therefore take appropriate steps to dispel the wide-spread notion that the APC is bent on rigging the elections and taking Bayelsa State by force.
“Mr. President, as an undisputed political leader of the APC-led Federal Government, should condemn the recent massive deployment by APC chieftains of large numbers of hoodlums, miscreants, cultists and thugs during the APC Primaries in Bayelsa State.
