Group seeks massive participation in democracy 

The Campaign for Development and Democracy (CDD), a socio-political group in Bayelsa State, has said that only a massive participation could change subversion of the people’s wish and enthrone democracy in the country.

Speaking at the second phase of the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR), the group called on the people of Bayelsa to actively participate in the electoral process.

Its coordinator, Konrad Welson, gave the advice during a sensitisation campaign in Twon Brass in Brass council of the state.

Welson, who is a lecturer at the Niger Delta University (NDU), Amassoma, urged the people to support credible candidates in the next general election to create an enabling environment for the development of their communities.

Addressing the audience comprising community leaders, chiefs, women groups and youths, Welson said Bayelsa needed social change and development could only be made possible by participatory democracy, which he noted, was lacking in the state.

He called on the people of the state to search, find and choose their leaders, saying failure to do so in the past had alienated them from their socio-political heritage.

“The political class has used the cover of democracy to subjugate, disenfranchise and undermine the people of the state in the past 18 years and the situation has made the people poorer, less productive and completely worse off.”

“The politicians in collaboration with their thugs hold the people hostage and subservient to the whims and caprices of the dictates of a few in the corridors of power.”

“It is for this purpose that we are mobilising the people and organising them to know that politics is not the exclusive preserve of politicians but a tool for the people to elect their representatives,” he said.

He noted that the aim of the group was not to witch-hunt any political party or individuals but to end the godfather syndrome where leaders were chosen not the common good but for selfish political ends.