BAYELSA RERUN: PDP, APC CLASH OVER RIGGING PLOT

Ahead of the January 9, 2016 rerun poll in Bayelsa State, two frontline political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress are at daggers drawn over an alleged plot to rig the election.

The PDP on Tuesday raised the alarm over alleged fresh plans by the APC to rig the rescheduled election in the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state.

The party also reiterated its earlier position that the same desperation of the APC’s candidate, Timipre Sylva, for power resulted in the abuse of otherwise respectable federal institutions during the aborted election.

A statement issued by the Director of Publicity, Restoration Campaign Organisation, Jonathan Obuebite, said the APC had still not learnt any lessons from the incident because “Timipre Sylva and others are hell-bent on using the same federal institutions like the military, police, INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) to rig the election in Southern Ijaw.”

While warning of its consequences, Obuebite claimed that the PDP had uncovered fresh plans by the APC to rig at all cost even when it was glaring that there was no way the APC could possibly win, going by the clear margin of victory by the PDP having won six out of the seven LGAs declared so far.

He berated Sylva and the APC “for doing everything to compromise INEC,” adding that he did same with the military and police during the cancelled election as desperate moves to win at all cost.

He drew attention to an interview by the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Baritor Kpagih, which though did not mention any names, revealed that money was offered to him by “certain interests” to skew the governorship election in favour of their candidate and that his refusal to be bribed had pitted them against him, leading to name-calling and threats to his life.

But in its reaction, the APC, in a statement by the Sylva-Igiri Campaign Organisation, alleged that the party was aware of underhand tactics by the PDP candidate, Governor Seriake Dickson, to win the rerun.

The APC alleged that Dickson and his PDP agents had started bringing in thugs into the state ahead of the rerun in Southern Ijaw and other polling units in six LGAs to “repeat what they did on December 5 and 6.”

The Director, Media and Publicity, Sylva-Igiri Campaign Organisation, Chief Nathan Egba, claimed that the APC had been informed that some strange looking faces were being seen in some rural communities of Southern Ijaw, while some had been camped in different hotels in Amarata, Swali and Tombia areas of Yenagoa.

He expressed fears that the desperation of Dickson to win the election might push him and his party to throw caution to the winds.

Egba said, “We wish to call on the security agencies in the state to step up their intelligence gathering and track down all those plotting to cause mayhem in the rerun with a view to compromising the election through massive rigging.”