"We have Not Seen Governor Sylva's Court Order Stopping Primaries"-PDP Warns “Mischief Makers As Bayelsa Mess Grows.

With the scheduled Bayelsa State gubernatorial primaries of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) only days away, the party today entered full combat mode, warning “mischief makers” within and trying to assure disaffected members that it is in control. 

A statement by National Publicity Secretary Rufai Ahmed Alkali said that Saturday’s primaries would go ahead and that the party has not been served any court order invalidating the exercise.

“Rumours of any court injunction therefore exist only in the fertile imagination of mischief makers who are bent on undermining the unity and cohesion of the Party in Bayelsa State,” the statement said. 

But Channels TV reported that the incumbent Governor of the State, Timipre Sylva, whom the party barred from participation in the process, has obtained a court injunction restraining the party from conducting Saturday’s gubernatorial primaries. 

According to Channels, Mr. Sylva also asked the court to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission from receiving a new list of nominees since his name had been submitted to the Commission on January 12, 2011.

Despite that broadcast, the PDP today presented clearance certificates to the seven aspirants it has recognized for the governorship primaries. Only yesterday, five of those aspirants angrily stormed the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja to protest that the ward congresses which were scheduled to have been conducted in the state on Monday, November 14, were not held. 

The five petitioners: Christopher Fullpower Enai, Boloubo Orufa, Austin Febo, Francis Amaebi Doukpola and Fred Korobido Ekiyegha, claimed that party officials sent from the headquarters spent only five minutes upon arrival at the state secretariat before vanishing into the political mists.

They fingered as a culprit gubernatorial aspirant Dickson Seriake, who is President Goodluck Jonathan’s preferred candidate.  “Although the congress did not take place, Hon. Dickson Seriake and his agents, however, made TV announcements to the effect that there were congress in the state, knowing that he had hijacked the materials and manipulated same in his favour so as to mislead the public and our party,” their petition said.

Today, Prof. Alkali was working hard to position the PDP as being “at the forefront” of the campaign for the rule of law and due process in Nigeria.

“We shall however not surrender ourselves to rumours being orchestrated by indisciplined persons who have no regard for group ethics and Party discipline,” he said.