I AM a gender activist but keenly interested in the build up to the December 5 governorship election in Bayelsa State, the glory of all lands and Jerusalem of the Ijaw nation. One thing that captured my attention is that the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, will stop at nothing to rig the polls if the good people of the oil-rich state fail to resist the sinister plot.

It appears part of the condition handed down the state chapter of the APC by its national apparatchik was that before it deployed its rigging arsenal in Bayelsa on election day, it must prove to the national leadership that APC was the new kid on the block. Hard as they tried, the Ijaw nation as an entity, particularly Bayelsans rejected APC and chose to remain with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for obvious reasons which time and space may not permit me to dwell on.

Observers believe APC’s greatest undoing was that it fielded a former governor of the state, Chief Timipre Sylva as its standard bearer in the December 5 polls. This forced former prominent party leaders like Senator John Brambaifa and Chief Alex Ekiotene and over 20 thousand APC officials and supporters to decamp to PDP.

Similarly, many aspirants in the ill-fated primary election that produced Sylva distanced themselves from the party. To further boost the re-election bid of the Countryman Governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, over 6,000 PVC-carrying friends of President Muhammadu Buhari under the auspices of Buhari Friends Organisation Network in Bayelsa endorsed Dickson’s re-election, citing his democratic credentials as reason.

The friends of Buhari’s support came at a period when Bayelsa Elders Council, non- indigenes in the state, the clergy, organised labour, NGOs, youth, women and faith-based organisations and majority of the rural communities in the state had vowed to retain the governor in Creek Haven!

The gale of endorsements for the governor and emergence of Sylva caused the APC meltdown in Bayelsa which expectedly frustrated Sylva and his camp. So after trying to no avail to sway us, the Bayelsa voters, Sylva seems to have finally settled for a phantom poll survey which gave him a head start over others so that if he is rigged into office, the world would not pick holes in the exercise.

It is against this background that observers are quick to say that the latest survey conducted by the Election Frontline administered by one Mac Pepple Joshua is a prelude to the plan to rig the December 5 governorship election and capture the state by hook or crook! The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, at a recent press conference in Port Harcourt read the body language of APC correctly when it warned the Presidency in strong terms not to manipulate the polls. While vowing to resist rigging, MEND promised to send 500 members to monitor the election in the creeks.

In its reaction to the fake election survey, the Restoration Campaign Organisation, RCO, the umbrella campaign organisation for the re-election of Governor Dickson said the opinion was meant to prepare the ground for APC to rig the election. Jonathan Obuebite, RCO Director of Media and Publicity in a press statement wrote: “…The so-called Election Frontline simply sat in Lagos and wrote its report which unfortunately alluded that the APC governorship candidate, Timipre Sylva, would win the election.”

Obuebite averred that the poll survey was not credible and argued that this same survey experts had predicted that the same “Sylva who was Bayelsa East senatorial candidate of the APC in the 2015 general election would win but he lost woefully to Senator Ben Murray Bruce of the PDP…”

The RCO spokesman boasted that majority of Bayelsans have vowed to re-elect Governor Dickson to consolidate on peace prosperity, development and security of Bayelsa State.

He therefore urged Bayelsans, Nigerians and the international community to ignore the so-called poll survey, which he alleged was sponsored by APC. While stressing that this opinion poll cannot sway the voters for the APC, Obuebite asserted that Bayelsans have vowed to resist rigging.

Obuebite also stressed that: “APC has no foothold on Bayelsa and Ijaw land. Our people cannot afford to gamble with their destiny. Re-electing the APC candidate, Sylva will spell doom for our people and return Bayelsa State to Egypt. Under Governor Dickson, we can see the promise land, that is why we must re-elect him to consolidate on his track record of selfless service to Bayelsans and humanity in general…!”

My take is that propaganda doesn’t win election, only permanent voter card does, Bayelsans will speak with their PVCs on the D-day, for the taste of the pudding is in the eating.

Ruth Francis, President of Wake Up Bayelsa, wrote from Yenagoa