By Dapo Akinrefon
FOR observers of political events, the governorship election in Bayelsa State is not just about ambition but also that of political survival and dominance of the riverine state.
Bayelsa is an unusual state. It is 100 per cent riverine, sits squarely on the delta, and is one of the few fairly homogeneous states in the country.
Politics in the state is said to revolve more around individuals than on the political party they belong to.
Interestingly, the November 11 governorship election is also considered as more of a flexing of political muscle and battle for political survival between the incumbent, Senator Douye Diri and former Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva.
Pundits are of the view that the contest will not only be fierce but also intriguing.
The state is important to the economic well-being of the nation and houses many strategic economic infrastructures, a reason the Bayelsa election is considered crucial to the country.
It will be the off-season election along with those of Kogi and Imo states. They will be the first elections to be held under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Thus, how these elections are handled will set the tone for what to expect in future polls.
In Bayelsa State, the governorship contest is a three-horse race among the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP; main opposition All Progressives Congress, APC; and the Labour Party, LP.
Governor Douye Diri, the incumbent, is flying the PDP’s flag; while Timipre Sylva is contesting on the platform of the APC.
The LP, which sprung a surprise during the presidential election, has adopted Udengs Eradiri as its candidate.
2019 political upset
Ordinarily, politics in Bayelsa State is centred around individuals and not the parties they belong to. Since most people belong to the PDP, elections in the state were always within the PDP and whoever emerges as the PDP candidate, wins.
That was the situation until the political upset of 2019 when the APC won a highly disputed election.
The two major gladiators, Diri and Sylva, are seen as formidable forces and can deploy the resources to contest in hostile environments.
However, the Diri and Sylva are former members of the PDP, who have enough foot soldiers to go the whole hog.
There is another consensus that the race for the governorship will be between the PDP and the APC, given precedence and indices on the ground.
Douye Diri
Since he assumed office as the Miracle Governor, some Bayelsans have tagged Diri as “talk-na-do” governor and an achiever.
His admirers and followers hold the view that he turned the fortunes of the state around in terms of developmental projects.
This action has endeared him to the people even though he came to power through a court pronouncement.
A PDP leader in the state, Mr. Godfrey Nazuan, opines that the Governor, by a deliberate and determined deployment of a combination of legislation, policy, decisive and clear-headed leadership, faced head-on the state of insecurity he met, and has made the state bandit-free in the last four years.
Nazuan said that cultism and drug-fueled murders, kidnappings and militancy are things of the past in the state.
Within this period, Bayelsa is now practically one of the safest states in the federation, a situation which makes it a haven for investment, he insisted.
Diri’s emergence as the governor is nothing short of a miracle, hence, the appellation of the Miracle Governor. In a surprise upset, the APC candidate in the election who had been declared winner, Mr. David Lyon, was stopped from assuming office, barely 24 hours before he was to be sworn in.
The surprise ruling of the Supreme Court which upturned the election of Lyon ensured that Diri was sworn in as the Governor.
Since becoming governor, Diri has spent his time proving to the people that he is capable and has tried to earn their trust.
One critical area that the state needed badly is infrastructural development. The governor has always claimed that the goal of his administration is to hit the shores of the Atlantic Ocean with roads since this is where the wealth of the nation comes from.
He said that he intends to hit Brass Island in the Bayelsa East Senatorial District, a strategic city on the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean where the Brass LNG project and the Brass Fertilizer project are located by the end of his first term.
Also, work on the Sagbama-Ekeremor-Agge road in the Western District, a distance of over 110 kilometres where a deep seaport project is ongoing is almost completed. The third flank of the project is the Yenagoa-Oporoma-Koluama in the Central District which houses the agricultural belt of the state. Works on this project have also reached an advanced stage and Diri is expected to tout these projects as part of his achievements.
The Governor believes that governance is a continuum and that all projects left uncompleted by his predecessor must be completed at all costs.
The governor will be banking on some of his achievements to do the magic for him as he goes for his second term in office.
Sylva staging a comeback
The immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, who is the APC candidate, has many things going for him.
The former governor singlehandedly brought the APC to Bayelsa State and has remained its leader even though the party has broken into several factions. He is said to have a deep pocket and also banking on federal might to prosecute the election.
As the contest gathers steam, some people in state say that Sylva is a Bayelsan abroad as he is resident in Abuja and is very far away from the reality of the situation in the state.
They believe that he should not have presented himself as the APC candidate. To them, since leaving office as governor, he has no legacy to count upon and the people’s memory of his time as governor is not very good.
To them, although Sylva may have survived various political prosecutions, his loss as the governorship candidate of the APC in the 2015 election to Governor Seriake Dickson should have told him that he is no longer wanted by the people.
This is his second attempt at contesting the governorship since leaving office as governor in 2011. Will he be second-time lucky? Only time will tell.
Udengs Eradiri’s youth credibility
This is the first time Eradiri will be contesting the governorship. The former president of the Ijaw Youth Council and member of the state cabinet under Dickson but later fell out with Dickson is very popular among the youths who see him as one of them.
Source: Vanguard