…We have grassroot support to reclaim our mandate – Turnah boasts

By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

The Deputy Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 governorship elections in Bayelsa State, Great Joshua Maciver, said he decided to dump the APC because he and other chieftains were sidelined by Governor Douye Diri upon the governor’s defection to the party.

Maciver, had served as a chairman of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, before he defected to the APC were he became the running mate to former governor and immediate past Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva in 2023.

Maciver was formally received into the PDP in Yenagoa, the state capital on Friday during the party’s 99th SEC meeting, where he received his membership card from the state party chairman, George Turnah. Maciver was also appointed as Board of Trustees Member representing Bayelsa State at the national level of PDP.

In his remark, the PDP state chairman, Turnah boasted that the party with its strong grassroots support base will reclaim its mandate in the upcoming general elections

Turnah said: “We have a state working committee comprising of fourteen members and all their assistants. So, we pride ourselves in this state as the party with a strong grassroots structure, the PDP has the biggest structure in bayelsa state.

“We have started the e-registration process. We are working constantly and vigorously to ensure that people get registered. And we have seen all the assurances from our leaders that the PDP is ready.

“In Bayelsa, we are committed, and our commitment is to take back our mandate because some people are with our mandate elsewhere, and we will not allow it. And again, Bayelsa, for too long, has been too backward.

“We are willing to raise a crop of leaders in the next cycle of elections that will put the state first before every other consideration. We need to create wealth, we need to generate employment, and we need to develop soft institutions that will support the people.

“We need to care for the elderly, we need to give hope to the low, and we need to raise people from the bottom to the top. A whole lot that needs to be done.

“And we are also preparing. SEC has also approved our preparation for the primaries. It’s going to be direct primaries, so it’s a whole lot. It’s going to require a whole mass mobilisation of our people because the idea is that once our candidates emerge from the people, it’s going to be as good as the election being done. So, we are moving on.”

Speaking after his unveiling, Maciver revealed that in the remaining weeks and months, more people will leave the APC to PDP,.as they are multitude of members who are dissatisfied following perceived maltreatment.

Maciver said: ”The last election, we know what we passed through to make sure we win that election and believe me, with this defection, there was a press release I issued, and I said before the governor’s defection, we had two factions in APC, and that is nothing but the simple truth.

“The two factions, one faction was like 95% of members. The other faction was just like 5%. At times, even the 5%, some would say it was like 3%.

“And when the governor defected with his people, he decided to work with the 5% and believe me, being a running mate in the last election, that 95% that he decided to abandon, 90% of that 95% would defect to PDP.

“They all have to stop it, but if you are not a leader, you are not a leader. So they will not be able to stop it. Then, when he defected from PDP, he defected from PDP with not even up to 10% of the old PDP members because in our Izon land, the only way you have influence in somebody’s life is when you play a major positive role in the person’s life.

“I look at Southern Ijaw, I have not seen anybody the governor has empowered, not even one person. So the governor cannot decide for anybody in Southern Ijaw what the
person needs to do. It’s not possible.

“Believe me, PDP in the next few days, a few weeks, a few months, the chairman and his team will be ready to receive those who are ready to join the party. It will be like a tsunami. I don’t want to put the names out there so that they don’t try to promise them their fake appointments.

“Working with our chairman and other leaders, it’s important that we produce some Assembly members. My plan, if God approves it, is to start from my local government, Southern Ijaw, the plan is to win all four House of Assembly seats and to win the House of Representatives in Southern Ijaw.

“As an opposition party in the state, it’s not possible for us to win all the seats, but we’ll look critically at those places where we know it’s possible. So to me, out of the 24, we should do something reasonable, if possible, we get the majority of them because we are more on ground and it’s not just mere saying, it’s something that is doable. If we put our minds together and decide not to betray ourselves.”