Sylva vows to defeat Dickson ‘any time, any day’

Timipre Sylva, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Bayelsa state governorship election, says he would defeat Seriake Dickson, governor of the state and his main rival in the election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared results of seven of the eight local government areas in the state, with Dickson, who is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), leading Sylva with a margin of 33, 954 votes.

But in a statement issued by his campaign organisation on Saturday, Sylva said he “will repeat the feat of overwhelming votes and victory for APC as recorded during the cancelled election in Southern Ijaw local government area”.

“The PDP is engaged in propaganda and underhand tactics but the APC will remain undaunted,” read the statement signed by Nathan Egba, director of media, Sylva/Igiri campaign organisation.

“Our candidate is ready and willing to compete against Governor Seriake Dickson at any electoral contest any day because he is sure of defeating him.

“Unfortunately, however, Governor Dickson knows this fact and has been engaging in all manner of underhand tactics to win this particular election.

“It is for this reason that the APC vehemently protested the illegal cancellation of the Southern Ijaw election results which clearly would have put APC well ahead of the PDP.

“But with all the stakeholders having agreed on a new date, the Sylva- Igiri campaign organisation is poised to galvanise our support-base in order to repeat the same feat we performed in Southern Ijaw local government area and some other polling units across the other 6 local government areas where supplementary elections will hold.

“Our strength is in the fact that majority of the people of Southern Ijaw LGA are with us and are still committed to standing by us through this whole process in order to eventually celebrate a hard won victory.”

Following the cancellation of the election of Southern Ijaw, which has a total of 120,827 registered voters, INEC has fixed January 9 for a rerun election.