By Samuel Oyadongha

Yenagoa—The former governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Timipre Sylva, has intensified lobbying of his former top aides and leading members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to support the election of the presidential flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Gen. Mohammud Buhari, in the state.

While Sylva has won over former Nigeria’s Ambassador to Venezuela, Felix Oboro, one of the founding fathers of the PDP in Bayelsa State into the APC fold, he led a team of senior party leaders on a call on his former Special Adviser on Security, Chief Richard Kpodo.

Sylva, it was learned, led the state APC Chairman, Chief Tiwei Orunimingha and hundreds of party loyalists to a meeting with Chief Kpodo at his hotel in Yenagoa.

Sources at the meeting said the former governor called on Kpodo to return to the fold of the APC and unite to ensure the election of Gen.Buhari and the change needed for development in country was actualised.

A state executive member of the APC, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the visit was to bring back Sylva’s former aides and build a support base for the victory of APC in the state.

Kpodo, who served as a close aide of Chief Sylva, was the chairman of the defunct New PDP and a grassroots mobilizer.

Contacted on the visit, Chief Kpodo said the visit by Sylva and the APC loyalists was a private one.

Meanwhile, the former Nigeria’s Ambassador to Venezuela, Felix Oboro, a founding member of the PDP in Bayelsa State, has defected to the APC, saying the last national and state Assembly selection exercises had destroyed the cohesion of the party throughout the country.