Bayelsa APC Supporters Accuse Party’s National Working Committee Of Abandoning Sylva

Supporters of the  All Progressives Congress (APC) have accused the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) of abandoning the party Governorship candidate, Timipre Sylva, after he lost the November 11 off-cycle governorship election.

The APC members blamed Sylva’s defeat on the National Working Committee, chaired by Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, not supporting him, as well as on purported vote-buying and the Independent National Electoral Commission removing 84,806 of his votes. They staged a protest at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.

Naija News recalls that Douye Diri, the incumbent governor of Bayelsa State and the Peoples Democratic Party’s governorship candidate, was proclaimed the election winner of the off-cycle governorship election.

With 175,196 votes, Diri defeated Sylva, his nearest opponent, who received 110,108 votes, while Udengs Eradiri, the Labour Party candidate, received 905 votes.

The protest leader, Dr Otitis Etionumeya, spoke to reporters at the APC secretariat, describing how disgusting it was that the party’s national leadership had dumped the former Minister of Petroleum just when he needed them most.

Etionumeya said, “We write with searing pain in our hearts over the brazen electoral heist perpetrated against our governorship candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, his running mate, Great Joshua Maciver and the entire APC family in the state in the November 11, 2023, gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State.

“We find it strange and curious that our party’s candidate was left in the lurch by the party at the national level at a time when he needed the support of the party the most.

“We, therefore, are inclined to believe that the Bayelsa State chapter of the APC has once again been used as a sacrificial lamb to satisfy some vested interests without any consideration for the party’s teeming members and supporters who have worked assiduously and at great cost for our party’s victory.

“If the Bayelsa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress wasn’t sacrificed to please some vested interests, how do we explain the audacious cancellation of results in areas such as Ogbia, Nembe, Brass, and Southern Ijaw LGAs where our great party had a clear lead until INEC jettisoned the respective collation centres where the results ought to have been declared but moved the results to the state collation centre in Yenagoa where results already declared with our party in clear lead were cancelled in flagrant contravention of Section 51 of the Electoral Act, 2022.”

The demonstrators went on to chastise Ganduje for accepting defeat as soon as INEC declared Diri as the winner.