Southern Ijaw: APC Plans More Violence, Ex-militants Regroup in Legislator’s Residence

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Monday, December 21st, 2015

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has uncovered a plot by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State to unleash another terror during the January 9, 2016 rerun in Southern Ijaw Local Governmnt Area and other 101 units across the state.

Chieftains of the APC in conjunction with some ex-militants, that were allegedly responsible for the killing, maiming and kidnapping of some corp members, met behind closed door a the weekend at the residence of a member of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, representing Brass constituency 1, Hon. Sunny Gholi, aka Adi, to perfect the strategies.

An inside source at the Sunday meeting revealed that APC is considering three options, which includes turning Southern Ijaw into a theater of war, transfer of the State Resident Electoral Commissioner and retention of DIG Hashiru Argungu as the leader of the security outfit.

It was also resolved that with the new plan by INEC to decentralize the distribution of electoral materials which will checkmate their tactics, APC has resolved after a careful analysis of the situation, that they stand no chance of winning election.

Having realised this the APC, as reliably informed has engaged the services of ex militants and some youths within and outside the state to unleash terror and subsequently ensure further cancelation of the rescheduled elections.

Their permutation is that with another violence, which will lead to another cancellation they will push and delay until Governor Seriake Dickson’s tenure expires to enable them push for a favourable announcement.

If their plan scales through, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly will take over the mantle of leadership in accordance with the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended.)

Meanwhile plans are on to continue with the idea to infiltrate INEC officials, just as they have once again decided to blackmail an international oil company, Nigerian AGIP Oil Company to part with N1 billion.

The same amount was demanded for the December 5 election, but were given about N200 million

Already, a whopping N100 million have allegedly been paid out to DIG Hashiru to get a contingent of police officers that has already been debriefed on how to make victory easy for APC.

A highly placed source said, “Apart from taking their game up, we also call on the security officers to beam their search light on some ex-militants: Africa, Tiwei and Ogun Boss, who wrecked havoc that led to the cancellation of the elections in Southern Ijaw LGA. Yet they are still moving freely despite being fingered for their atrocities.

“We are also calling on Argungu or whoever that will be leading the security outfit for the January 9 election. The essence of this information is to draw the attention of the international community. to focus their attention on Bayelsa State elections.

We are calling for more presence of international observers and civil society to be on ground as well.

“Furthermore, we call on the people of Southern Ijaw to be at alert to resist a situation whereby their people will be killed and maimed for exercising their civic duty. Already a new wave of kidnapping has reared its ugly head in our dear state that has enjoyed peace until the APC primaries that produced Chief Timipre Sylva.”

Governor Seriake Dickson had put the average statistics of the voters that took part in the December 5, 2015, governorship election at 40 per cent, contrary to the claim of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva.

He made the clarification while featuring on a live interview programme, ‘Focus Nigeria’ aired on Africa Independent Television (AIT) saying the statistics is not peculiar to Bayelsa State.

Dickson said having won six out of seven LGs declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with a wide margin, he should be declared the winner of the election and not the APC candidate.

Giving a breakdown of the statistical voting pattern in the last election, Governor Dickson said, Sagbama LG had a total number of 83,000 registered voters and the number of PVCs collected was 73,000, while 35,000 voters were accredited, same for Ogbia and Ekeremor LGAs.

While commending INEC for the introduction of the PVCs, Dickson stated that, Ofoni community which is PDP’s stronghold, with a voting strength of 14,000, but only about 3,000 voted, out of which he scored about 2,500.

“Southern Ijaw has 120, 827registered voters with 17 wards. Yenagoa is the largest with over 135,000 voting population less than 45,000 turned up for the election”, he emphasised.

The governor pointed out that, with pockets of violence recorded on December 5 and 6, 2015, the turn out may be low for the re-run, adding that he would record a convincing victory in the area going by the level of consultations with relevant stakeholders from the local government.