The Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Bayelsa State on Saturday elected its three senatorial candidates, five House of Representatives and 18 state assembly candidates through direct primaries approach.
Chairman of the party’s electoral panel for the state, Chief Austin Asamowei, told journalists at the party secretariat in Yenagoa that its primary elections were conducted in all the wards across the eight local governments of the state, while the final collation and declaration of results was done at the state level.
He said, “We have just elected our candidates for the Senate, House of Representatives and State Assembly through direct primaries, we sent out our electoral officers to all the wards and they have turned in the results, but in some of the constituencies that have only one aspirants, we adopted a voice vote.”
“We used best practices in conducting our primaries because Nigerians are agitating for good and popular leaders, so we want to present popular candidates who will win next year election for the party.” He said.
He explained that for the few seats in the house of assembly which they could not present the candidates at the moment, they will fill it through substitution and called on the party members to continue with their mobilizations at the grassroot levels.
He appealed to the Federal Government and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to create enabling environment for free and fair election in 2019.
The state chairman of the party, Prince Awotu Oniekpe, said that the party adopted a direct primary to ensure that every member participate in the primaries, and also make it free and fair.
He noted that SDP believes prosperity of Bayelsa State, hence its resolved to produce the better and popular candidates to contest for the next election.
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