By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

At the heart of the decision of the three Bayelsa legislators to defect from the PDP is the belief that they were not well covered by President Goodluck Jonathan in the local conflict with Governor Serikae Dickson. Such suggestions that the president is aloof to the troubles of his political associates is not new.

Several legislators from within and outside Bayelsa have in the past complained of being politically bruised and battered even while fighting the battles of the president.

Amange

In 2011 it is remembered that most of those who fought for the enthronement of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as acting president of the country eventually rued that they did not get protection within the PDP and as a result eventually lost out. Senator Ehigie Uzamere who conceived the caucus of senators National Interest Group, NIG in 2010 to promote the enthronement of Dr. Jonathan as acting president only returned to the Senate in 2011 because he remained in the then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. Several other senators including Senator Nimi Barigha-Amange, Jonathan’s own senator were shut out from re-election, and the president simply was helpless as governors dealt mercilessly with the Jonathan allies.

In the case of Senator Clever Ikisikpo, associates claim that the president did not intervene as Governor Dickson not only stopped him from getting a re-election ticket, but also allegedly prepared grounds through the establishment of a disciplinary committee with the target of wielding him and his associates from the party. The claim among several stakeholders in Ikisikpo’s camp is that the PDP disciplinary committee constituted by Governor Dickson was targeted at them and hence their decision to exit the party, a move that inevitably seemed to ridicule the president.

Whereas several associates of the president had in the past borne with equanimity such persecutions that they got in the course of walking with the president, Senator Ikisikpo, apparently refused to walk in the same course. Why he chose this course may not be unconnected to the fact that the President would in few days be out of office and as such be without the kind of carrot or stick to lure or lash them. After all, Senator Barigha-Amange despite the same humiliation remained in the party in 2011 and continued working for the president.

The decision of the four members of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly to defect from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the APC was based on the fact that they were denied re-election ticket on the banner of the PDP.

President Goodluck Jonathan

It is assumed that those who got the ticket of the PDP were associates of the governor. Such antics by governors of Bayelsa State in projecting their associates to win the tickets in the state House of Assembly are not new. The first civilian governor of the state, Chief Dipereye Alamieyeseigha was faced with a similar crisis ahead of the 2003 governorship election when majority of the state executive of the party turned against him in favour of the then executive director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Chief Timi Alaibe.

At the heart of the crisis then was that Alamieyeseigha failed to honour a pact reached with the state PDP executive at the Hotel Presidential, Port-Harcourt in which he was to cede 10 of the 24 seats in the House of Assembly to the state exco. After agreeing with the executive, the governor reportedly reneged and pushed forward his surrogates to take all 24 seats in the legislature.

Eventually, the majority of the same men he pushed forward who he believed would protect him did not blink when they impeached him in 2005.

Governor Timipire Sylva also did the same thing ahead of the 2011 election when he pushed his surrogates into taking all seats in the 24 member House of Assembly. When in late 2011 President Jonathan bared his fangs in the battle with the governor, the legislators all laid low and enthusiastically welcomed Dickson to office.

Governor Dickson’s decision to project his own set of legislators is now believed to be at the crux of the unfolding political crisis in Bayelsa State. The governor it is alleged is determined to have his own set of steadfast loyalists in the legislature to if not protect him and project his legislative agenda.