By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor, Rotimi Ajayi, Henry Umoru & Sam Oyadongha
LAGOS — Intrigues shadowing the forthcoming Peoples Democratic Party, PDP gubernatorial primaries in Bayelsa State last night stretched the party to the brink as the party leadership extended its silence on the clearance or otherwise of embattled incumbent Governor, Chief Timipire Sylva to today.

Sources said that PDP governors and legislators were last night locked in a meeting with President Jonathan to push their support for Governor Sylva.

With Sylva’s fate remaining uncertain, party sources were also pointing to a possible reversal of fortune for Mr. Timi Alaibe and Mr. Ben Murray Bruce, two of the frontline candidates they party had kept mum over.

The fate of Mr. Bruce Vanguard learnt last night was being considered by the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Adoke in Abuja yesterday. He was expected to submit a report to the party yesterday.

Governor Chief Timipire Sylva

There were other pointers to the possibility of Mr. Alaibe, who was recently readmitted to the party obtaining a waiver under the framework that would allow all the interested candidates including Sylva contest the primary.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bruce, the charismatic founder of the Silverbird entertainment group in a chat with Vanguard affirmed his determination to pursue the contest to the end as he blamed the chaos on those who wanted a coronation of a single candidate.

“This is not a coronation, this is a competition and the chaos is about those who want to eliminate everybody so that they can compete by themselves. They are planning a coronation, I want a competition,” he said last night.

Meanwhile, with the President going to Bayelsa today for the wedding of his younger brother, Azibalanario Jonathan, it was being expected that the drama shadowing the clearance for the candidates would relocate to the state.

Ahead of the President’s departure today, members of the Bayelsa National Assembly caucus were last night locked in a closed door session with the President where the issue was said to be the main agenda.

Mr. Sylva who has been holed up in Abuja for a week is expected to make a return to the state today to formally receive the President.

The National Working Committee, NWC of the PDP at the end of a scheduled meeting yesterday afternoon was also not forthcoming on the fate of Sylva but the Acting National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje flatly denied wild speculations in Abuja that one of the candidates had compromised the NWC to the tune of N500 million.

In a seeming confirmation of Vanguard’s story of issues raised against some of the candidates including Sylva, he said the party was in the process of verifying the complaints raised against some of the candidates.

“We are still in the process and today we believe that we will still receive feedback from our findings, if we do, we (will) give more releases until we are able to finish with all the complaints. This is exactly what we are doing, the exercise is a question of procedure, its procedural it’s is not as if we have put a final stop on it, we have not sacked Sylva, we are doing our politicking by finding out that our candidates are fit and suitable, because we do not want to put a candidate on ground to go out there in January election and don’t win election for us, so we want a candidate that can win election for us and so that when that candidate goes to the field he will be very confident.

“Sylva won election for us, yes and we believe he can still win election for us, but let us do thoroughly by following our old tradition, the Constitution of our party is very clear and that is what we are doing, we have not gone outside our Constitution neither have we infringed on the rights of any of the candidates.”

PDP refutes bribery allegation

On the alleged N500 million bribe from one of the candidates, Baraje who described the report as false and mischievous, said, “we at the PDP particularly the leadership, we are used to this kinds of blasphemy, we are not moved. On Kogi issue they said that the Chairman of the party received $8 million, it was circulated and they mentioned some members of NWC that also got $60 million. People who write such things I wonder at times whether they know the meaning of millions, because they just mentioned it with so much levity that if some of us get such money what are we doing here.”

Affirming the determination of the party to follow due procedure in selecting its candidate, he said:

“People took forms, the next thing we did was that we screened them, in the process of screening as a result of the democratic values and tradition of this party, we received complaints which people refer to as petitions, but we called them complaints in our party. We received complaints that cannot be overlooked. I am a systems man, when I see something that deserves to be looked into, I will look into it so that I will be able to tell you when you ask me, I should be able to feed my members back that people complained about some issues and that this is correct and this is not correct, I have my responsibility together with members of NWC.

‘’So when we received these complaints, I think about eleven bought forms in Bayelsa and out of these people all of them were screened between the period of screening and the period of appeal, we usually have what is called appeal committee, in order to give room to people who have complaints to go and lodge their complaints to that committee, these are all geared towards democratic principles, fair hearing.

“Between that period and this we received complaints of some of these people and we took it up to find out and in the process of finding out, we discovered that the findings might not be properly done here, we now told the appeal people to invite the people for fair hearing, and on Sunday this week they were all invited, they defended themselves and the NWC deliberated and we decided to find out even from outside communities where these complaints seem to have been connected and that is exactly what we are doing.”

Meanwhile, the camp of the embattled Governor was yesterday hopeful of a clearance from the national leadership to contest the primaries. Their expectation Vanguard learnt was also based on discussions among party leaders that fielding a candidate different from Sylva could result in the PDP losing the state.

A top source close to the National leadership caucus of the Party disclosed in Abuja yesterday that the warning alert was given by some Governors of the party from the South South zone who discussed the issue with President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Wednesday.

It was learnt that the Governors told the President that Governor Sylva was the strongest among those seeking the ticket of the party in view of his being a sitting Governor.

The source revealed that though President Jonathan was indifferent to the candidature of Governor Sylva, the President was bowing to the pressure so as to ensure that his home state is controlled by his own party.