BAYELSA APC CRISIS: Sylva victory causes ripples in Bayelsa APC

The All Progressives Congress primary, which produced the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, as candidate for the Bayelsa State governorship election, is tearing the party apart.

A primary election is a process of choosing governorship candidates by political parties in Nigeria that will fly their flags at main elections at the national and sub-national levels. The process is a requirement in the Electoral Act, 2022 (as amended) which every political party is expected to fulfil.

Any political party that fails to hold the exercise to select its potential candidates will not have valid candidates to present to the Independent National Electoral Commission for any political contest. But primary polls have hardly taken place without drama, intrigues and controversies.

The APC primary for the November 11 Bayelsa State governorship poll conducted on April 14 and 15 was no different. The exercise and its outcome are generating ripples and anger in the party.

Two aggrieved aspirants, Festus Daumiebi and the APC governorship candidate in 2019, David Lyon, have rejected the outcome of the election in which the former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, emerged as the governorship candidate of the party. They claimed that the exercise was pre-determined to favour Sylva. Other aspirants who also contested the party’s ticket are a former militant leader, Joshua Maciver, and two females, Prof Ongoebi Etebu, and Isikima Johnson.

The APC primary election committee for Bayelsa, which was headed by Maj. Gen. Ahmed Jibrin (retd.), and DCP Adejoh Seer (retd.) as secretary, declared the former Bayelsa governor as the winner of the exercise in the conference hall of the party’s secretariat in Yenagoa. Other members of the panel include Ndubisi Agbo, Muhammed Diwar, Abdulmalik Mohammed, Opemipo Olorunfemi and Titi Oseni.

The party adopted the Option A4 electoral method in the conduct of the process across the 105 wards and eight local government areas of the state

At the end of the exercise, Sylva polled a majority vote of 52,061; and Joshua Maciver came a distant second with 2, 078 votes. Also, Lyon got 1,584 votes while Etebu, Isikima and Daumiebi scored 1, 277; 584 and 557 votes respectively.

Jibrin said, “With this result, Timipre Sylva, having scored the highest number of votes cast is hereby declared as the winner. By the power conferred on me by the APC National Working Committee, I declare Timipre Sylva as the winner of this election.”

After declaring the winner, the panel went further to conduct an affirmation exercise with five ad-hoc delegates from each of the 105 wards inside the party’s secretariat in the state capital to affirm the outcome of the process.

But midway into the announcement of the results from each of the local governments, Daumiebi left the venue in protest, murmuring inaudibly. While Lyon, Sylva, and Isikima were absent, Etebu and Maciver were present.

Daumiebi, a lawyer, in a statement he issued later in Yenagoa, demanded that the exercise should be cancelled. He claimed that the election did not hold in the various wards and that party officials who should have conducted the exercise did not turn up, and electoral materials were not also available for the voters who waited in vain throughout the day.

He said, “Notice is hereby given to the general public, particularly the APC in Bayelsa State and the National Executive Council that, I, Festus Daumiebi, a governorship aspirant of the APC, do reject in its entirety what was announced as the result of the party primary election.

“Let it be known that on Friday, April 14, 2023, some card-carrying members of the All Progressives Congress turned out at various wards to cast their vote in what was promised to be a free, fair and credible primary election. They waited all day but, sadly, there was no election in the wards across the state as officials of the party, who were sent to conduct the election, failed to turn up, and neither were their electoral materials seen in the said wards.

“In selected places, they tried to pass off a simulation of an election, the process was undermined, marred by irregularities and heavily compromised. Party officials failed to abide by the party guidelines and agreed processes. Upon reaching the party secretariat on Saturday, April 15, I was shocked to observe that ‘heavy numbers’ have been concocted for their preferred aspirant and then a return was made in the open as programmed.”

While urging his supporters to remain calm, the governorship aspirant said he would challenge the outcome of the primary legally.

Similarly, Lyon, while rejecting the exercise, described it as disgusting and resentful. He argued that the primary election was not conducted in the 105 wards of the state, insisting that the declaration of the result was fraudulent.

He said, “I want to maintain that people waited from morning till night on the day of the election and there was no distribution of election materials, neither was there any presence of election officials.

“In particular, I waited in my Olugbobiri ward of Olodiama II Ward 4 from 8 am till 8 pm, to no avail. I am saddened to learn of a fraudulent declaration of a result emanating from that exercise. It is both irresponsible and criminal and must be condemned in its entirety.

“I call on the National Working Committee and indeed the National Executive Committee of our party to reject the results as declared by the primary election committee and sanction the promoters of such a devilish and irresponsible act.”

Signs that the APC process would throw up controversy came to the fore before the scheduled dates as some party stakeholders had opposed the former minister’s decision to contest for the APC governorship ticket.

They urged the NWC to disqualify him from participating in the exercise. The stakeholders, drawn from over 40 wards in the Sagbama, Ekeremor, Ogbia, Kolokuma/Opokuma and Southern Ijaw local government areas, in a petition to the NWC, hinged their reason on Sylva’s refusal to resign his appointment to pursue his aspiration.

They argued that Sylva had not quit office as of March 25 when he presented himself for screening by the panel of the party in Abuja, in compliance with the 30 days of resignation before the primary polls. According to them, Sylva’s action was a violation of the APC constitution; they threatened to drag the party to court if it failed to do the needful.

Another group, under the auspices of the Progressives Consultative Forum, believed to be working for Lyon, also warned against allowing the former governor to fly the party’s flag. They expressed their support for Lyon, saying he would deploy the same political strategy he used to win incumbent Governor Douye Diri in 2019 to bring about victory for the APC in the 2023 governorship election as well.

Leader of the PCF, Wilberforce Waribote, in a statement, contented that Lyon is a philanthropist and bridge-builder, who is more popular than Sylva amongst the Bayelsa electorate.

Sylva, who ruled Bayelsa from 2007 to 2012, had always claimed that the state was owing him a second tenure. But he, too, had contradicted himself on his ambition to return to Creek Haven, the state seat of power, for a second tenure before he resigned his appointment.

For instance, those opposed to his second-term aspiration pointed to a video that trended before the primary election in which he vowed not to vie for the governorship again. In the 57-second video, Sylva was heard saying, while responding to a question during an interview on a Yenagoa-based radio station, that that chapter of his life was closed.

The former minister said, “I will not run for the governorship of Bayelsa again. I have said it, that chapter of my life is closed. If I was to run for governor of Bayelsa State again, I would have presented myself in 2019. But at that time, I presented David Lyon, who won the election and we lost at the Supreme Court.

“This time again we will look for a very credible Bayelsan to run under the party. But I can tell you, since you asked a categorical question, I will also categorically answer you that that candidate will not be me.”

But in a chat with journalists in his Yenagoa residence in March 2023, Sylva stated that the office of governor was not beneath his political status while responding to a question that he should play the role of kingmaker in the party instead of gunning for the party’s governorship ticket again.

However, after the former governor was declared the winner of the primary election, both Maciver and Etebu, in their separate speeches, said they had accepted the outcome and promised to collapse their structures into that of Sylva, adding that “there is no victor, no vanquished.”

Addressing party members during the affirmation exercise, Sylva called for “collecting working together of all us that can ensure that Bayelsa State moves forward from where we are.” He also stressed that the interest in developing the state was the overriding interest that motivated him to take another shot at Creek Haven.

The APC governorship candidate said, “We are one family, we are one people, one Bayelsa. And all of us have one paramount interest. That interest is the forward movement and progress and development of our state, Bayelsa.”

If Daumiebi carries out his threat of going to court over the exercise, the APC would struggle to clear that legal hurdle while also trying to assuage the grievances of Lyon and his supporters as well as other aggrieved party members who are disenchanted by the former governor’s candidature.