Saturday, January 9 was a date with history for governorship election in Bayelsa State that dragged from December 5, 2015 with voters in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area and 101 polling units across the state casting their ballots.
For Yesterday’s elections, the leading candidates, Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of the PDP and former governor, Timipre Sylva of the APC addressed press conferences to highlight certain developments that borders on peace.
Governor Dickson, in his press conference last Monday, described Sylva as his brother though they shared political differences and called on him to ensure that the election is peaceful saying “join me to build a safer and better Bayelsa State.”
Dickson equally tasked the Federal Government and all relevant agencies including the security agencies to play by the rules disclosing that he had had a fruitful discussion with President Mihammadu Buhari who promised to address some of the issues he raised.
Later on Wednesday, Sylva addressed his own press conference where he questioned the mental state of Governor Dickson and debunked allegations of influencing the transfer of security chiefs in the state while accusing the governor of masterminding violence.
Sylva also alleged that the PDP procured its lead in the poll through violent means and used the opportunity to assure his party and supporters that he will overtake the lead as the supplementary election will take place in mostly APC strongholds.
However, the story of violent election in Bayelsa State, like a recurring decimal, began in earnest soon after with a reported attack on the house of the Speaker of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Konbowei Benson at Korokorosei in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area.
Reports said some thugs attacked the house of the PDP top-notch with substances believed to be dynamite which caused significant damage to some portions of the edifice at about 4.00am on Thursday, just two days to the election.
Same day, the younger brother to the deputy governor, Beinmo Jonah was attacked in his residence in Yenagoa and he has been hospitalised; strong indications that the election will be another violent episode in the annals of Bayelsa State electioneering.
An unconfirmed report from Ekeremor, headquarters of Ekeremor Local Government Area said community people were being chased from the town less than 24 hours to the rerun election in that ward.
The fear among many stakeholders is that most of the violence that marred the election took place in the presence of security agents who were either coerced into doing the bidding of some political leaders or compromised their professionalism for filthy lucre.
These developments are taking place even when security has ostensibly been beefed up with assurances that four helicopters will undertake the distribution of materials to forestall hijacking by party thugs, four gunboats will patrol the waterways while speedboats with over 200 horse power engines have been barred from the waterways as from 7.00pm on Friday until 7.00am on Sunday.
As things stand, the pendulum could sway any way which is the reason why both contestants are not leaving anything to chance as apart from the lead, both candidates have secured the minimum requirement of 25 percent of votes in two-thirds of the local government areas.
So much has happened since the first ever really competitive election took place in Bayelsa State but the biggest talking point has been the violence that was unleashed on voters across the state resulting in several ‘casualties’.
The police debunked the killings that stakeholders believe took place while the two main contestants, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) traded blame over the violent incidents.
The results declared so far by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) show voter apathy in all the seven local government areas where the election first held on December 5 and no more is expected of Southern Ijaw which saw unbridled violence by suspected thugs.
Of the seven local governments, the PDP has 105,748 votes to APC’s 72,594, a difference of 33,154 while the votes at stake in Southern Ijaw and the other 101 polling units are about 150,000.
But the voting trend has shown that out of 533,666 registered voters in the seven local government areas of Brass, Ekeremor, Kolokuma/Opokuma, Nembe, Ogbia, Sagbama and Yenagoa, only 195,793 voters were accredited to vote which is about 36.69 percent.
If the same trend persists, then the PDP should emerge winner except of course, the electorate in Southern Ijaw and the other 101 polling units all turn out en masse to cast their ballots which will grant the APC victory.
However, one thing that the December 5 and 6 elections showed is that you cannot totally remove violence from elections in Bayelsa State except of course for the 2015 general elections which remain the most peaceful so far.
Samuel Ese
