The leadership of the All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State has disclosed that its governorship candidate and the immediate-past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has been the sole financier of the state chapter of the party.
The state APC chairman, Dennis Otiotio, made this known in an interview with journalists after a solidarity walk which culminated in a grand reception for Sylva by supporters at the party’s secretariat in Yenagoa.
This was just as he stated that the party had set up a reconciliation committee headed by Prof. Millionaire Abowei to interface with the aggrieved governorship aspirants who were dissatisfied with the outcome of the primary election that produced Sylva as the party’s standard bearer for the November 11 polls.
Otiotio said members and supporters decided to welcome Sylva back home with the event as he had travelled to Abuja shortly after the exercise.
He explained that the former governor had always shouldered the financial burden of the state APC, noting that the party supporters wanted to use the grand reception to demonstrate their love for him and commitment to his electoral victory.
The APC chairman said, “Timipre Sylva has been the sole sponsor of the party in the previous elections. He has been the pillar behind the party; he has been the sole financier of the party and the people felt that now that he has been elected the candidate of our party, we have to come out en masse and show him love and commitment.
“We want to tell him that we are behind him and we will move all the way to ensure that he is elected Governor of Bayelsa State come November 11, 2023.”
The APC Primary Election Committee Chairman, Ahmed Jibrin, declared Sylva the winner of the exercise which was conducted on April 14 and 15.
Jibrin, who announced the result at the party’s secretariat in Yenagoa, said Sylva polled 52,061 votes to clinch the governorship ticket while a former militant leader, Joshua Maciver, came second with 2,078 votes.
The APC governorship candidate in 2019, David Lyon, came third with 1,584 votes while Prof. Ongoebi Etebu, Isikima Johnson and Festus Daumiebi scored 1, 277, 584, and 557 votes, respectively.
However, Lyon and Daumiebi rejected the result, saying the primary did not take place in the wards across the local government areas of the state and that scores were merely allocated to the aspirants.
They also demanded the cancellation of the exercise even as Daumiebi threatened to go to court to seek redress.
Otiotio said it was a normal thing that some aspirants would be angry at the end of such a process, adding that the committee was mandated to reconcile all dissatisfied members in order for the party to battle the incumbent governor from a united front.
He said, “The State Executive Committee of this great party had constituted a reconciliation committee headed by his His Royal Highness, Prof. Millionaire Abowei, so we are on track.
“In the aftermath of any party primary there will be people who are aggrieved. The mandate of the reconciliation committee is to reconcile all aggrieved members so that we will present a common and united front.”
Meanwhile, Sylva has pledged to tackle the menaces of flooding and unemployment, and also establish industries, power and security, among others.
The APC governorship candidate, while addressing a crowd of party supporters who welcomed him with a solidarity walk from the state’s gateway, Igbogene, to the party’s secretariat in Yenagoa, said he would attract investments to liberate the state’s economy.
He also stated that the Governor Douye Diri-led administration was bereft of ideas to develop the state.
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