Gov Dickson wins second term

Governor Seriake Dickson: wins Southern Ijaw and second term

Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa has clinched a second term in office, winning the rescheduled election in Southern Ijaw Local council by a wide margin.

Dickson who had led his APC opponent, Timipre Sylva by over 36,000 votes in the other seven local councils, got 23081 votes in SILG, while Timipre Sylva got just 10216 votes.

The Southern Ijaw polls was rescheduled after violence and malpractices marred the exercise on 5 December, 2015.

Days before the Saturday, 9 January rerun, there were pockets of violence in Bayelsa state, with the two leading political parties, PDP and APC, trading blames over the incidents.

On election day, two persons were arrested for allegedly snatching ballot boxes.

An NGO, Credible Leadership and Citizen Awareness, that monitored the supplementary election, issued an interim report and petitioned the INEC Chairman about the malpractices observed during the rerun.

Director-General of the NGO, Dr Gabriel Nwambu, said the decided to bring to the notice of INEC and the global community some anomalies, which clearly negate the principle of democracy and the conduct of elections.

Nwambu who addressed the press said its findings and report were based on the findings of its personnel deployed all over the state to observe the conduct of the exercise.

According to him, in Southern Ijaw, election materials and INEC personnel never got to Lobia 1, 2 and 3 communities in Bassan area of Southern Ijaw LGA.

“INEC ad-hoc staff also reported that the bag containing the electoral materials was snatched and taken away by thugs allegedly working for one of the leading political parties, in the presence of security force,” he said.

He reported widespread malpractices in other polling units and conclude by saying “these are fundamental issues that affect the success or failure of every election, guided by democratic principles and practices, in line with globally accepted standards.”