Frederick Agbedi has bemoaned what he described as an absence of vision- driven election as he reacted to his loss at the just concluded People’s Democratic Party ( PDP) governorship primary election in Bayelsa State.
Reflecting on the outcome of the election, Agbedi who represents Sagbama/ekeremor Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives told correspondents on Wednesday in his home in Yenagoa that it was not necessarily about service, popularity or vision.
“Maybe, I’m still not popular enough or there are certain things in our politics that are swaying people’s mind. I don’t want to talk about that. It is not necessarily service or how popular or your vision. I think the election was not driven by vision. If it was vision and popularity, I’m tops among them. We are yet to be driven by vision,” he stated.
Maintaining that his performance was not good enough, he urged all other contestants to remain calm, steadfast and work to deliver the party and its candidate, Douye Diri in the November 16 governorship election.
“My appeal to all those who contested is that we should remain calm, be steadfast and ensure we work to deliver the party in the election,” he stated and congratulated Diri, while appreciating PDP for a transparent poll said one cannot win every election.
On the issue of alleged intimidation of delegates, he pointed out that it was not perpetrated by the party and that the important issue was to do one’s best in an election and that “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”
He disagreed with those who believed that with Diri as the PDP candidate, the All Progressives Congress (APC) would emerge victorious in the forthcoming governorship election.
Agbedi stated: “No candidate is perfect; no one is overwhelmingly good. What makes the victory is those behind that candidate to drive the process to victory. And for some of us, we are ready at all times to rally round our party men to ensure that we drive the process to victory.
“I don’t believe that any other party is going to produce a candidate that will be overwhelmingly better than our own candidate,” assuring that the PDP would collapse their strength into a pool to ensure Diri’s victory.
According to him, “Some people have electoral advantage. Assuming I was the candidate, I couldn’t have been all round advantageous to win the election. I’ll still need to muster people’s support, muster their advantages to win. By the time we speak to ourselves, victory will be sure.”
He described the tension during the election as unwarranted, blaming it on immature politicians as thugs have nothing to do in a delegates’ election. According to him, in his own case, he had to discourage such assistance, lamenting that it was due to lack of political development.
