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APC has not endorsed anyone for Bayelsa guber polls – Aspirant

By NAN
08 September 2015   |   8:30 am
A female gubernatorial aspirant, Mrs Tonye Apraela, said on Monday that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not anointed any person for the Bayelsa governorship election. Apraela said this while addressing newsmen after submitting her nomination and expression of interest forms at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja. She said: ``Nobody has endorsed anybody. It…

A female gubernatorial aspirant, Mrs Tonye Apraela, said on Monday that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not anointed any person for the Bayelsa governorship election.

Apraela said this while addressing newsmen after submitting her nomination and expression of interest forms at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.
She said: “Nobody has endorsed anybody. It is his followers that endorsed him. I had wanted to make that correction but thank God I have the privilege now.

“The APC has not endorsed anybody, so, nobody should be afraid in Bayelsa State, we are all going out for the primary.’’

She expressed gratitude to the party for issuing free forms to women and was optimistic about winning the race even though funds were scary for her.
“As a woman, meeting the delegates some of them were saying, madam without money you cannot do anything but I want to say that money is not everything.
“Let them just vote for people that are upright, people that have the heart for the people to man the state and if they do that, everybody will be affected positively in Bayelsa state,’’ she said.

Former Gov. Timipre Sylva, also addressing newsmen after submitting his forms, accused incumbent Gov. Seriake Dickson of abandoning all the projects he initiated when he was the governor in 2012.

“As at 2012, we were poised to celebrate in 2013 one year of uninterrupted power supply in Yenogoa city. I had installed turbines and there was a turbine that was 93 per cent complete when I was ousted.

“The outgoing government refused to commission it because they did not want me to take credit for it.

“There are a lot of projects that I embarked upon which were deliberately abandoned on the altar of politics,’’ he said.

Sylva also lamented the youth restiveness in the state, saying “the era of kidnapping has returned. I experienced it in 2013 when my old uncle of 87 was kidnapped and killed. There is insecurity in the water ways of Bayelsa.”

Amb. Emmanuel Otiotio, another aspirant, told newsmen that the state was in dire need of people of integrity.

He believed that his highest credential was the fact that he was a born again Christian, who will do the job of governance in the state with fear of God.
While reacting to the insinuations that a particular aspirant bought forms for some other aspirants, he said he was comfortable enough to gather N5.5 million for the forms.

“I will introduce good governance and the proper management of the peoples’s resources and bring back the fear of God into governance in line with what President Muhammadu Buhari believes in.”

On hispart, Chief Diekivie Ikiogha, a retired director and one-time Adviser to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan when he (Jonathan) was governor of Bayelsa, said his civil service experience gives him the premonition that he’s the right man to rescue Bayelsa from its current state.

“If you know how government works, you’ll know that in a state, only the governor gives the direction on state matters while appointees follow directives.
“Some of us have been so critical that we normally disagree with the governors, that is why we’ve been able to survive in government and that is why we want 100 per cent involvement, no longer an appointee where your advice don’t count,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that 14 aspirants are contesting for the governorship in Bayelsa.
The APC primary will hold on Sept. 15.

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