Alaibe denies instigating defections from Bayelsa PDP
People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) governorship aspirant in Bayelsa State, Timi Alaibe, has refuted the allegation that he was behind the gale of defections by aggrieved members of the party in the state to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Alaibe, who has approached a Federal High Court in Abuja to challenge the outcome of the Bayelsa PDP governorship primary, described the allegation against him as a wicked and unwarranted attack.
He spoke in reaction to a claim by the state PDP chairman, Moses Cleopas, that he was directly responsible for the mass exit of prominent members of the PDP to the main opposition party in the state, the APC.
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Cleopas had said that all those leaving the PDP daily had the original objective of supporting the former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
But Alaibe said prominent and well-respected Bayelsa leaders of the party mentioned by the Cleopas left the PDP for other political parties based on personal convictions.
Alaibe’s special assistant, Enize Ogio, said it would have been appropriate under certain circumstances to ignore Cleopas, but noted that doing so would mean denying Bayelsa people and indeed other Nigerians the opportunity to know the truth so as not to be misled by cooked-up falsehood.
“For avoidance of doubt, Alaibe is not in any way responsible for the defection of these respectable Bayelsans from the PDP to any other party. How would he do such a thing when he has personally, in repeated signed statements, made it clear that despite pressures from all quarters, he would remain in the PDP and that he would not be persuaded to abandon the party though his desire for the governorship of the state was tragically aborted by Cleopas and his ilk,” he noted.
He said it was unfortunate that at a time when Cleopas and his sponsors ought to be apologising to the people of the state for presiding over the conduct of the most procedurally flawed primary election in the history of the state, they were rather busy grandstanding and looking for whom to blame.
“It is sad to note that at a time the national headquarters of the PDP has set up a committee to reconcile and bring aggrieved members of the party back to the political family after the defective primary election, the party’s leadership in Bayelsa State is embarking on further self-destruction, just three weeks to a crucial governorship election, by bandying falsehood against someone who could reinvent and mobilise the people against the already anticipated failure of the party at the poll on November 16,” he added.
Alaibe said it should worry every member of the PDP that Cleopas, instead of burying his head in shame that the party he was elected to lead was disintegrating under his watch, was going about advertising his glaring incompetence by attacking someone whose public service records and leadership qualities were far beyond his imagination.
“Let it be known that those who have left the PDP for other political parties in Bayelsa State are merely fed-up with the ineptitude of the current leadership of the party in the state exemplified by the partisanship exhibited in the last governorship primary election. Their exit has nothing whatsoever to do with the insinuations made by Cleopas and his sort. Alaibe still remains a member of the PDP,” he noted.
