A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader in Ogbia Local Government, Chief Iboro Edaba-Ige, has accused Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of being the architect behind the not so impressive performance of the party in the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Speaking to newsmen, Chief Edaba-Ige accused Governor Dickson of failing “to heed the voice of wisdom that cautioned him about balkanizing the People’s Democratic Party in Bayelsa state”.
•Gov Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa
Chief Edaba-Ige was reacting to a story in newspaper not Vanguard on Wednesday titled ‘Disquiet in PDP as Jonathan loses senatorial district to Sylva, APC’”.
He noted that, “the writer of this obviously sponsored story tried futilely to push a false narrative which alleged that former President Goodluck Jonathan could not deliver his community and senatorial district to the party in the just-concluded elections”.
Chief Edaba-Ige however in sharp disagreement with the narrative call Dickson’s attention to the fact that “many leaders, worried by the Governor’s manifest duplicity, had warned that the victory of the PDP in Bayelsa was never an inevitability. Their fear was that while the people of the state, like the rest of Niger Delta have come to find sense of belonging in the diversity and strong internal democracy of the party, which ensures that all interests are sufficiently carried along in decision making, Governor Dickson remained the odd man out who wanted all or nothing for himself alone”.
He further cautioned the Governor and his team that “rather than seeking to spin the narrative by characteristically blaming Dr Goodluck Jonathan, a peace-loving former President who has since given room for others to take the reins in the state while playing the role of the continent’s leading statesman and father of all, the Dickson camp would do well to look where they slipped and lost the confidence of the people. We should tell them straight away that they lost PDP members in the state when they unilaterally selected unpopular candidates in the sham party primaries of October 3rd 2018”.
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Describing it as “mischievous to pin their self-inflicted failures on the former president, when the state governor was fully in charge of the party structures and the entire machinery of the state”, Chief Edaba-Ige pointed out that Former President Jonathan, “convincingly won his polling booth, Ward and local government for his party in the Feb 23 elections, before the Governor’s greed deprived the party of some National Assembly seats it had traditionally won, effortlessly”. He concluded calling on the governor “to work for reconciliation “, while calling on the national leadership of the PDP to “show courage and call Governor Dickson to order”.
It would be recalled that on Wednesday, Governor Dickson constituted a six-member Judicial Commission of Inquiry to identify perpetrators and sponsors of the violence that led to loss of lives and destruction of property in the State. According to the Governor, these agents of destruction were allegedly hired leaders of the main opposition party in the State to destabilize the Presidential and National Assembly election in some parts of the state, especially in the Senatorial district in question, Bayelsa East, where the PDP commanded great advantage.