Bayelsa Poll: PDP, APC Trade Words Over Violence, Thuggery

Ahead of the November 11 governorship election in Bayelsa State, supporters of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Governor Douye Diri and All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva have continued to trade words over allegations of violence and thuggery.

The Concerned Bayelsa Elders and Stakeholders for Democracy (CESD), a group loyal to Diri, had alleged that the immediate past minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, had sown fake police uniforms that would be worn by militants and thugs to do his bidding.

On the other hand, the APC candidate, Timipre Sylva had also accused Diri’s administration of buying guns for militants and importing gunmen from neighbouring states to cause mayhem.

In a statement signed by the public relations officer of CESD, Chief Timiebi Okiriyan, after an emergency meeting held in Yenagoa, he claimed that it had come to their knowledge that Timipre Sylva, is set to use violence as a tool to circumvent the electoral process in the forthcoming poll.

Okiriyan said it was against that backdrop and fear of a repeat of the 2015 mayhem in Southern Ijaw that the group is sending the alarm to security agencies and the general public about Sylva’s plans and the need for all, particularly the police, to be on the alert to arrest the ‘’fake policemen wherever in the state they are identified on election day“.

In a reaction, Sylva‘s media aide, Julius Bokoru, said the allegation is “dead on arrival”, adding that the APC candidate, being a law-abiding citizen would never be involved in anything that would tarnish the democratic image of the country or Bayelsa State for that matter.

He said, “Over the years, what we have come to understand about Governor Douye Diri and the PDP in Bayelsa State is that anything they are planning to do is what they accused others.“