Bayelsa Poll: Sylva Heads To Court

·         Following his defeat at the just concluded governorship election in Bayelsa state, Timipre Sylva, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday, January 12, has declared his intention to head to court.

Speaking with newsmen, Sylva alleged that INEC and the PDP worked in concert to rig the election in favour of the PDP, Premium Times.

According to him, the INEC officials were assembled by the immediate-past administration to deliver the state to PDP in last general elections.

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Sylva to head to court after defeat to Governor Dickson in Bayelsa guber poll

He said: “I said in the beginning that I do not have confidence in the REC and the Administrative Secretary, that I do not expect a fair treatment if these people were to preside over the election.

“I said so over and over and over again. I even reduced it to writing, and we sent the petition. Usually before elections of this nature, INEC officials are switched.

“But this time, they chose to keep this team that was already in place set up by the PDP as rigging machine.

“This was the same team that returned almost 100 percent of all votes in Bayelsa to the former president.

“And we felt that these people could not have given us a free and fair treatment. But unfortunately, our cries fell on deaf ears. Yesterday, they proved themselves true to type.

“The election could have been further declared inconclusive since about 53,000 votes were still outstanding as cancelled votes and in places where APC won, results were cancelled, but where PDP won, the results were entered.”

The ex-governor also alleged the rigging started from the distribution of materials and that election materials were diverted as they were taken to voting centres by vehicles provided by the PDP.

He said that the same set of collation officers, and other officers used in the December election were used on Saturday’s election, a situation he said aided the rigging process.

According to him, the APC would always win in any free and fair election in Bayelsa state.

Governor Seriake Dickson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the Bayelsa supplementary governorship poll following official results collated by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on January 10.

Dickson won seven out of the eight local governments in the south-south state defeating Chief Timipre Sylva of the APC after a keenly contested election.

Merged with the result of the December 5, 2015 election, Dickson polled a total number of 134, 998 votes, while Sylva polled 86,852 votes.

Just after his defeat at the poll, a Peoples Democratic Party group known as Restoration Campaign Organisation alleged that Timipre Sylva went drinking and clubbing.