While 16 political parties fielded candidates for the election, the contest was solely between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Before the election, the Labour Party (LP) was seen as a third force, but its performance on the election day confirmed the views that in Bayelsa, it is a two-horse race.
Many had, however, attributed the LP poor show in the election to its own internal wrangling, which saw six out of the eight chairmen of the party at the local government level dump their candidate less than 48 hours to the poll.
But the main factors that gave Diri the victory over Timipre Sylva of the APC have been narrowed down to the high rate of vote cancellation, violence and internal party wrangling within the APC that observers said played itself out in covert anti-party activities before and during the election.
The returning officer for the Bayelsa governorship election, Prof Kuta Faruk, while announcing the result, said that PDP’s Diri scored a total of 175,196 votes to defeat his main challenger and the candidate of the APC, Sylva, who scored 110,108 votes to come second.
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Vote buying
But what the final results announcement did not reveal was the high rate of vote buying by the major political parties, with arguably every voter being induced in one way or another.
In most polling units, Daily Trust on Sunday observed that voters were induced with monetary benefits to the tune of N40,000.
It was gathered that in most communities in Ogbia and Brass local government areas, party agents deployed as much as N40,000 per voter to gain the votes of the electorates in the area.
It was also learnt that before the election, most voters were already on the payroll of the two major political parties in what was termed as ‘empowerment,’ which many political pundits described as pre-election inducement.
While the election was ongoing, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announced that its operatives arrested a suspected vote buyer, who is a chieftain of a major political party in Otuoke, Ogbia Local Government Area of the state and intercepted cash amounting to N9.3million from him.
The candidate of the Labour Party, Udengs Eradiri, an engineer, had also decried what he termed as ‘high level of vote buying’ during the election, describing it as crime against humanity.
A civil right activist in the state, Comrade David-West Bekinwariy, described vote buying as trading of conscience for money, urging the people of Bayelsa to desist from it in future elections.
David-West, who was an INEC accredited observer during the election, said it was unfortunate that after much sensitisation against the idea of vote buying, people still allowed politicians to force the trade on their conscience.
He said, “The election was marred with a high level of vote buying because just like a market place, people were seen trading their votes. Politicians were out with bags of money to induce voters.
“EFCC operatives were supposed to be on ground to monitor activities like this, but as an observer, I did not see much of their presence of EFCC.”
Cancellation of votes
Our correspondent also observed that the cancellation of votes from polling units where there was violence was also a factor that produced a winner and losers during the poll. The INEC had, before the election informed stakeholders that they would not repeat the election in the areas where voting was cancelled due to violence.
APC’s state agent at the collation centre, Dennis Otiotio, a lawyer, had raised concerns that the party’s votes in some wards in Southern Ijaw and Nembe local government areas were cancelled, alleging that about 54,000 vote belonging to it was cancelled in Southern Ijaw, while 29,000 votes were cancelled in Nembe Local Government Area to give the PDP an advantage during the election.
Recall that the APC won about 95 per cent of votes in Southern Ijaw and Nembe local government areas during the 2019 governorship election in the state, but due in part to the increased violence in the areas during the just concluded election, most votes were cancelled.
Otiotio had alleged that the APC won in Southern Ijaw, considered a traditional stronghold of the party, contrary to INEC’s declaration of the PDP as the winner of the area. But according to the official results declared by INEC, Diri scored 24, 685 votes while the APC candidate, Sylva, scored 18,174 votes.
He said, “I want to vehemently protest that in Southern Ijaw, over 50,000 of APC votes were deliberately cancelled, for reasons best known to the collation officers.
“The results we have from the polling units show that the APC scored over 70,000 votes in Southern Ijaw. At this INEC office here, these votes were cancelled without any valid reason whatsoever. They do not have such power to cancel those results,” he had insisted.
Also, there was voter apathy during the off-cycle election in the state over fear of violence. Most voters could not come out to vote in Southern Ijaw and Nembe local government areas.
While registered voters in Southern Ijaw stood at 184,401, only 50,153 were accredited to vote during the election, according to INEC, and in Nembe, the registered voters are 99,035, but only 27,404 were accredited.
Internal party wrangling
In the buildup to the governorship election, both the APC and PDP had their different challenges. Aggrieved members of the parties had differences, which resulted in either defecting to other political parties or remaining in the party to work for the success of another party.
For instance, in the PDP, some key leaders at the ward and state levels had defected to the APC and declared support for Sylva. Some of the governor’s aides also defected to the APC in the buildup to the election.
Similarly, after the APC primary won by Sylva, some bigwigs of the party, including the governorship candidate of the party in 2019 election, Chief David Lyon, Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the estranged political god-son of Sylva, Israel Sony-Goli, stopped associating with the party in the state or joining any of the campaigns.
Observers and analysts believed that the wrangling within the APC caused the party to lose in its strongholds. Southern Ijaw and Nembe, for instance, with high voter registration, were APC strongholds from the 2019 elections, but were lost to the PDP during this election.
During the 2019 governorship election, the APC scored a total of 124,803 votes in Southern Ijaw, while PDP scored a paltry 4098 votes.
The candidate of the APC in the 2019 governorship election in the state, Chief David Lyon, who is from Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, did not publicly associate with Sylva after losing the party’s ticket to the former minister of petroleum, a situation many observers said gave credence to the permutations of covert anti-party activities.
But a chieftain of the PDP from Sagbama Local Government Area, Adonba Amgbare, said Governor Diri’s victory at the poll was expected because he had been working well for the state in the last three and half years in office.
He said the PDP went into the election with a united house when compared to other parties that had already been divided before the election. He added that the PDP had been a dominant party in Bayelsa State and would always win a free and fair election.
He explained that with the zeal the governor has pursued development in the state, especially the construction of roads to link some riverine communities, there was no way he would not have won the election. He dispelled the speculation of vote buying and cancellation of votes to give PDP an edge as claimed by APC and LP candidates.
He said, “Apart from the development that every feasible eyes can see, Governor Douye Diri won overwhelmingly because he has been working for the state in the last three and half years. Those who could not access their communities by road have done it under his government, so how will such governor not win his re-election?”
