BY EMMANUEL AZIKEN, Political Editor, & Emma Ujah
ABUJA—The plot to supplant Governor Timipre Sylva as the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate in the forthcoming gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State formally unfolded Monday with the formal presentation of a close associate of President Goodluck Jonathan as the candidate of a group of political dissenters from the state.

The group, known as the Restoration Group, at a briefing in Abuja, presented Dickson, a member of the House of Representatives as the candidate, in their words, to restore the glory of the state which they claimed had sunk under Sylva’s stewardship.

Dickson, who is serving his second term in the House of Representatives and served as a Commissioner for Justice during Jonathan’s time as governor between 2005 and 2007, told Vanguard, last night, that he had accepted the endorsement and was now an aspirant as any other person for the PDP candidate.

The group’s claims were immediately rebuffed by Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Nathan Egba, who described the group as a confused bunch who had lost touch with the reality on ground in the state.

Egba said the group’s scheme to overturn the nomination of Sylva as the PDP candidate in the gubernatorial election was against the endorsement given Sylva by the state PDP, President Jonathan and “our mother, the First Lady.”

Mr. Furoebi Akene, a social critic, who spoke on behalf of the group, alleged that Gov. Sylva had not only stalled the development of the state since assuming office but also heightened insecurity in the state.

He said: “I can categorically tell you that since President  Goodluck Jonathan left Bayelsa till today, no pin has been added. Timipre Sylva has not added any project.  The few estates Dr. Jonathan built are the only ones. The Ekole Bridge was built by Jonathan, the Tower Hotels and International Conference Centre stopped where Goodluck left it.”

Akene, who is a member of Goodluck Jonathan’s Presidential Monitoring Committee on the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, said Bayelsans had been terribly brutalised under the current administration, especially through the recently- outlawed Famou Tangbe security outfit that allegedly maimed and killed several innocent people.

He said, ”Dickson is the Moses that will lead the state to the promised land.  He will not be like Moses who only saw the promised land but did not enter into it. Dickson will see the promised land and take us there.”

Reminded that with the party machinery in the hands of the governor, it might prove a herculean task for Dickson to secure PDP’s  ticket, Mr. Izagara said God had already anointed their candidate and would, therefore, make a way.

Sylva’s man reacts

Reacting to the development yesterday, Mr. Egba said: “Well, we are not surprised by this development. We have for some time been monitoring their effort to gang up against Gov. Sylva. However, to their specific allegations of non- performance and insecurity in Bayelsa, all we can say is that these people have lost touch with reality having been blinded by ambition, because no right-thinking Bayelsan or anybody that has visited the state will deny the enormous work that has been done by Gov. Sylva.

“We know that their whole game-plan is predicated on  the Supreme Court judgment and lies that they feed to unsuspecting Bayelsans about endorsement from high quarters. But they will fail whatever way judgment goes.

“As endorsement, it is even Sylva that has a subsisting endorsement from the party and even Mr. President and our Mother, the First Lady.”

Dickson, however, welcomed the endorsement, affirming that he had accepted the endorsement to rescue the state.

“They are my allies. I accept the adoption and as a matter of fact we have done a lot of consultation on this issue.”

“I am just like any other candidate I cannot say that I have been endorsed by the President, I am a candidate like any other candidate and it is for the people of Bayelsa to determine who their Governor would be.”