Sylva declares self ‘APC governorship candidate’

Timipre Sylva, former governor of Bayelsa state, is insisting that he is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the December 5 governorship election in the state.

Sylva said any attempt to conduct fresh primary would amount to illegality, saying no “amount of manipulation” can reverse his purported victory.

Sylva was announced as winner of the election conducted by the state chapter of the party after Adams Oshiomhole, who chaired the electoral panel, sneaked out of the venue of the election amid violence.

Oshiomhole later accused Sylva of scuttling the exercise, an allegation which Sylva denied and in turn claimed that the Edo governor had “a clear agenda to get him out of the race“.

However, John Oyegun, national chairman of APC, subsequently rescheduled the primary to a yet-to-be announced date, saying the election did not hold in the first place.

But in a statement issued by Sylva’s media office on Saturday, the former governor said those clamouring for fresh primary want to get the ticket of the party through the back door.

“An APC candidate for the December 5, 2015 governorship election in Bayelsa State has emerged and that candidate is Chief Timipre Sylva,” read the statement, signed by Doifie Buokoribo, Sylva’s spokesman.

“There is no way a fresh primary can be organised on Tuesday as it would amount to an act of illegality. No amount of media manipulation can change that. This is a society of law and order.

“The latest disinformation through the media goes to show the level of desperation of some people who want the APC governorship ticket through the back door. An election was conducted, Sylva won, the whole world has seen it.”

The statement said there were reports in some quarter that Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto, and Ibikunle Amosu, his Ogun state counterpart, had been assigned to join Oshiomhole in conducting fresh primary.

Describing the statement as a “cruel hoax”, Buokoribo said: “There is no way a hopelessly compromised Oshiomhole, who has also openly displayed his bias, can be asked again to go and conduct an election in Bayelsa State.

“As at Saturday, 26 September 2015, Tambuwal is in far away New York attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) while Amosun is attending Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Are they going to conduct a virtual election?

“Despite the orchestrated lies and disinformation, the Sylva Campaign will again urge our teeming supporters to be law-abiding, peaceful but resolute. Victory is sure.”