Oshiomhole: Sylva has no belief in democracy

Adams Oshiomhole, governor of Edo state, has accused Timipre Sylva, former governor of Bayelsa state of not having “faith in democratic process”.

Addressing reporters in his state on Wednesday, Oshiomhole alleged that Sylva frustrated the primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa.

He said apart from Sylva, all the other aspirants agreed with the guidelines that the electoral committee decided to use for the exercise scheduled for Tuesday.

Oshiomhole said Sylva accused the committee of trying to frustrate his ambition, adding that the action of the former governor shows that he does not believe in democracy.

“Whoever wins does not matter but the process that produced the winner,” he said.

Oshiomhole also accused the police of compromise, wondering how thugs found their way to the venue of the election despite heavy presence of security personnel.

He explained that while some of the thugs were apprehended and handed over to the police, the police saw nothing wrong in their action and released them immediately.

He said the chaos that characterised the primary does not conform to the guidelines issued by the party for the conduct of governorship primary.

Oshiomhole added that the APC national secretariat had adopted standard guidelines, which were  used in producing a winner in the Kogi gubernatorial primary, without any problem.

According to him, the key issues in the guidelines were identification of delegates with their permanent voter card, national ID or international passport.

He also accused the APC executive in Bayelsa of conducting parallel primary instead of working with representatives that the national headquarters sent to conduct the election.

He said he and the secretary of the committee did not announce any result neither did they issue any certificate of return, disclosing that he had recommended that a new date is fixed for the exercise.

Already John Oyegun, chairman of the party, has announced that a new primary will hold in the state.