PDP hopeful of Bayelsa guber poll victory amid defections

The gale of defections notwithstanding, the Bayelsa chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed optimism of winning the November 16, 2019 governorship election in the state.

The state party chairman, Chief Moses Cleopas, who dismissed those that had cross-carpeted to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in a statement yesterday in Yenagoa, argued that the Bayelsa people and the party’s followers were not with the defectors, whom he described as persons lacking the “requisite character, principle, and integrity.”

More than five aides of Governor Seriake Dickson have so far resigned their appointments and left the party in protest of the gubernatorial primary that produced Senator Douye Diri as the standard-bearer for the election.

Just as the ruling party was trying to weather the storm, former Deputy Governor Peremobowei Ebebi quit the political grouping.

In his resignation letter, Ebebi said he came to the hard decision after “experiencing and enduring an excruciating period of a largely fraudulent internal democracy in the state chapter of the party.”

He accused the chapter of lacking “respect for the party’s constitution and due process.”

But Cleopas, in the statement, claimed that the defectors were “motivated by greed and the inordinate quest for political positions being dangled before them by the APC.”

He recalled that the PDP won the election “convincingly in 2015 in spite of the spate of defections and would repeat the feat in the next election without such unstable characters.”

Reacting to the reason advanced by Ebebi for parting ways with the party, the chairman stated that the “difference between the party leadership and the defecting politicians was the lack of capacity to resist the temptation of suspicious political offers and even threats.”

He alleged: “The (Seriake Dickson) government regularised Ebebi’s position as a former deputy governor and approved a monthly pension of N2.5 million for him, which he has been collecting since 2012 in addition to other forms of material and financial support.

“The governor also appointed Ebebi as Bayelsa State representative in the Niger Delta Development Commission in 2014.”

leopas said it was “rather shocking that Ebebi whose nominee is still a serving commissioner could come out to launch a scathing attack on the government and the party in the search for non-existent reasons to justify his defection to the APC due to greed and inordinate quest for political offices.”