…Plot to suspend me from APC ‘ll fail —Daumiebi

By Clifford Ndujihe & Emem Idio

This is not the best of times for the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Bayelsa State ahead of the November 11 governorship election.

Although about 10 political parties are contesting the poll, the election is panning out as two-horse race between Governor Douye Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and former Minister of State for Petroleum and former Governor of the state, Chief Timpreye Sylva, who is running on the platform of the APC.

To retain the governorship, Diri, apart from relying on his achievements in the last three and half years, is said to be reaching out to some topshots of the APC for support and the move, sources said, is yielding dividends.

A source said Diri has reached out to prominent APC leaders, particularly those who have an axe to grind with Sylva, including the Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, and 2019 governorship candidate, David Lyon.

Lokpobiri and Lyon are allegedly backing Diri’s re-election, which some political observers finger for their absence from the campaigns and political activities of Sylva in the countdown to the election.

The gulf between Lokpobiri and Sylva widened, following Sylva’s refusal to back his ministerial bid after APC won the presidential poll.

Lyon, who was defeated at the APC primary in controversial circumstances.

Lyon, who was sacked as Bayelsa state governor-elect by the Supreme Court in February 2020, had thought that he would be given the right of first refusal in the consideration of the |APC governorship candidate but that was not done.

Efforts to reconcile the warring APC camps have not yielded positive results. Pleas by the National Chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Ganduje, and other top leaders to the warring chieftains have fallen on deaf ears.

“Diri is capitalising on the polarisation to further divide the opposition ranks by giving a lot of concessions ahead of the poll. The governor has promised to hand over to Lokpobiri, as governor, with Lyon as deputy governor, if the duo can fully abandon Sylva and team up with him to consolidate his hold on Bayelsa,” a source said, adding that Lokpobiri and Lyon may accept the offer.

According to the source, Diri has conceded 50 slots of Senior Special Assistants (SSAs) each to Lokpobiri and Lyon, and has promised them some measures of influence in his government, if re-elected.

He stressed: “This alliance between the governor and APC top chieftains implies that the two may have to defect to the PDP after Lokpobiri has served his term as minister in the Tinubu administration ahead of the battle to succeed Diri in 2026.”

PDP insiders confided that the governor is threatened by the aloofness of his predecessor, Senator Seriake Dickson, who has distanced himself from the Diri administration.

In Bayelsa, the former governor and his camp nurse a feeling of alienation and marginalisation and efforts by the PDP national leadership to broker truce has not succeeded.

Dickson was said to be disenchanted that Diri was running the show especially with the opposition elements without his input.

However, Diri has not limited his ‘succession promises’ to Lokpobiri and Lyon and APC family alone; he has extended it to other big wigs in his party.

A source claimed that Senator Benson Agadaga (Bayelsa East); Mitema Obodor, the Director General of his campaign council, a member of the House of Representatives representing Ogbia Constituency; and Robert Enogha, a former Commissioner and two-time member of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, who also hails from Ogbia, are in the succession plan of the governor.

Ogbia is the base of former President Goodluck Jonathan. The move is said to be calculated to secure Jonathan’s blessing and support in the November election.

Currently, the former president is considered to be favourably disposed to Diri.

Plot to suspend me’ll fail — Daumiebi

Meanwhile, amid the gulf in APC, a chieftain of the party and a 2023 governorship aspirant, Mr Festus Daumiebi, has stated that any plot to suspend him from the party would be an exercise in futility.

Daumiebi, who was the APC Senatorial Candidate for Bayelsa Central Senatorial District in the 2019, in a press statement, weekend, said intelligence report before him indicated that some members of the APC in Abuja were planning to induce his Southern Ijaw Ward 12 executives to announce his suspension from the APC.

The party chieftain who pledged his commitment and that of his teeming supporters across to the APC, urged the national leadership of the party to disregard any suspension as he has no intentions of leaving the party he has worked so hard to contribute to its pillars in Bayelsa State.

He said: “The mischief makers and their co-conspirators after several failed fishing expeditions have resorted to concocting all sorts of fallacious, malicious, misleading and smear campaign against me in order to find justification for their planned satanic suspension.

“My initial thought was not to dignify them with a response but on a second consideration, I am moved to make this statement on account of unsuspecting members of the public and to set the records straight.

“For the avoidance of doubt, I state categorically that the allegations which they are raising against me in certain quarters and planning to make public are not only spurious and fictitious, they are also the product of the figment of the imagination of haters. I hereby challenge them to the strictest proof.

“It is on record that I am a founding and committed member of the APC who has worked assiduously for the growth of the party in Bayelsa State and beyond…

“This is also to serve as notice to the national executive of the party that I, Barr. Festus Daumiebi Sunday and my teaming support base across the Bayelsa State are committed to the APC and we shall remain resolute to the ideals of the party.”