Recently, the Bayelsa State governor, Seriake Dickson, who won his re-election after a bitter tussle on January 9 spoke with Daily Sun on the election that drew blood.
In answering questions in Abuja, he noted that his opponent of the APC, Chief Timipre Sylva, contesting the outcome of the election is callousness considering the number of people that died in the election. He argues that for the respect of those that died, Sylva should have congratulated him and accepted to work with him and restore peace to the state.
He spoke on other salient political issues about the state, the nation and the political parties.
Peculiar election
This election that brought me back for the second term was not just an election. It was more than an election, and more like warfare. Getting through it was actually like surviving a war.
Yet the ordinary people of Bayelsa, the women, the youths and the men of Bayelsa were resilient and steadfast showing their belief and confidence in me. Election after election, community after community, local government after local government and by the counts of the electoral body, we won seven of eight local government areas declared which is resounding victory despite all odds.
We were up against a full display of the totality of power at the centre, deployed to the fullest. All elements of national power were deployed to take over Bayelsa by force and my opponent’s campaign was appropriately nicknamed operation takeover Bayelsa. He called it a take over mission, a tag that appeared innocent at first, but in retrospect we now understand what it meant from day one.
I want to thank all media practitioners, all clergymen and women, Nigerians from all walks of life who prayed for me, my family, praying that the right thing be done, including people that I have not personally interacted with. They followed up developments, commenting on various social media platforms, showing their anger and disgust with belief that the right thing should be done.
It was one victory that resulted into spontaneous celebration for families and local communities in Bayelsa and across the entire South South and most states and cities in Nigeria, a lot of people stood glued to the television when collation was on, hoping that the forces of evil did not triumph. So I cannot thank them enough.
I have received a lot of calls from the broad spectrum of the Nigerian population. I want to thank the international observers as well as the local ones, students, women, youth groups, politicians, those who are not into politics and even leaders of other parties for their belief and confidence that the right thing be done. I also appreciate embassies. A number of them sent observer missions to Bayelsa, led by high ranking officials. I remember the US Consul General who personally led the US team and on every occasion interacted with us to get our views and perspectives. It was so for the British High Commission that was also present.
Historic victory
As I said earlier, not only is this the first time a governor is winning election in a core Niger Delta state on a platform different from the party at the centre, it is a very significant political development for us. This is a triumph of my people’s will over the might of the ruling party. If voters in Bayelsa, women and youth, men had to stay awake in the night forming a wall of protection of their voting units in their communities, even some of them blocking armoured personnel carriers, it is a very significant election. Knowing what we have gone through, it means that Nigerian democracy is on track and it shows that our nation will not be a one-party state. So anyone who is dreaming or thinking that this vast land of people, resilient people will be cowed and will only go a particular way or that people will be coerced into some kind of totalitarian rule should begin to think twice. With my experience in Bayelsa, our people are beginning to understand their role in a democracy, they are resolute and they are now getting better educated on the democratic processes. It is a good development because this country should not be allowed to sleep into a one party dictatorship. It is victory for the people of Bayelsa, ordinary people who rose up sometimes against the desires of the elite, most of the elites who revamped and joined other parties positioning themselves for federal appointment lost their booths and polling units. So it is a good development for Bayelsa, good for the nation, good for PDP and ultimately good for our country.
What is the lesson you learnt from the election?
What I have learnt, which I have always known, but a number of people underrate is that for anyone seeking elective office, you must go to your people. Power comes from God and the people. In this election, of course most of you know that I and my team spent almost six weeks campaigning in a way never done in the politics of Bayelsa. Moreover, and the governorship policy of Bayelsa can never be the same again after now, because again, we have raised the bar in terms of interacting and communicating and engaging the people. We prepared them and educated them do all that eventually later came. We visited community after community as against the former practice of a candidate just making peripheral appearance in a senatorial district, two or three days after elections are over. This time, we engaged and it connected.
I was able to connect to the people, and I had the people on my side. If elections are conducted 100 times, I will win 100 times, unit after unit, community after community, ward after ward, local government after local government because we prepared the state for election.
Even when we did these, the other side did not campaign or prepare for an election. They prepared for violence, buying arms and ammunition, equipping young people, misleading young people to prepare for a war and using the control of the party from the center as basis for compromising security and distorting the state of law and order.
The lesson from this is that, after God comes the people in an election. For those who do not believe, they can say the people first, but I am a man of faith. So I believe that God allows the people to have power when he chooses to, so God and the people decide. We also saw the benefit of non-violence because the story would have been different if we had not laid that foundation in our campaign and warning everybody not be violent but to resist intimidation and turn out to vote, insist on their right to vote and that their vote counts and are counted.
Will you probe the violence?
First of all, it was unnecessary violence and we just need to know that all these people arrested are from one side. Even all those mentioned are from one party, the APC. The victims are all one party, PDP. That’s the reason we didn’t allow people to do formal celebration because of what we call the cost of the victory.
The victory came at a cost and I pray that those who were injured and in hospitals receive speedy recovery. All in all, the election was generally ok. The only shortcoming was just the security beat. Security agencies need to get some things right, but we thank God for the people, while still feeling very concerned about lives lost and structures. That is the more reason that when the final result was declared, apart from saying that I will not want any formal celebration, I thought that even on account of the injured and the dead, even in their memory, my opponent should have accepted defeat, called and congratulated me and then joined me to reconcile the state and build a new Bayelsa.
But unfortunately, he and his party seem to be talking about litigation, which they are free to act upon. But that is disrespect to the memory of the dead or those who were injured. It seems he is not tired of supplementary election when you realise that every election and supplementary election comes with a cost, that makes it all the more insensitive.
In seven local government areas, he was defeated flatly. As a matter of fact, and by our records, when we go to the court eventually, we will prove that valid votes in Brass local government which somehow INEC, the officials connived, and at gunpoint forced electoral officers to write results in his favour, were not actually valid. Never. So even the few votes that they accredited to him and recorded for him will come under severe scrutiny.
We may have a situation that in the end, everybody will know that we won eight out eight local government areas and then he seems to be suggesting that there should be supplementary election, which means he doesn’t care about the dead or the injured, or how many houses were destroyed and pulled down. In fact, he doesn’t care if the whole of Bayelsa goes to blazes or everybody is killed by his militants who were armed or by agents of the state that acted for party at the centre provided he is the governor. I think that’s too much of desperation.
This is when you use that word desperation; when a man has lost an election clearly, in a way and manner that was clear and complains of rigging. If it were in some decent climes, some people will be asking questions right now on what happened in Bayelsa. And to say people have not died enough, not enough community has been ransacked by his militants, not enough people have been gunned down or terrorized by people working for him, but should still go for election, an election he knows that in any community where the election took place, he doesn’t stand a chance, the result proved it. Is just the height of desperation.
At the end we led with over 48,000 votes and he seems to be suggesting that he’s not tired. For us this election has been won and lost, and the honourable thing, for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of Bayelsa, for the sake of the people, he should stop this war against our people, stop boasting that they will manipulate the judiciary to give him victory to upturn the will of the people. He doesn’t care whether people died or institutions destroyed, he just wants to be the governor of Bayelsa by hook or crook. I do not know what he wants to get out of the judiciary in this clear election. If people feel they can lose elections and run to the judiciary, and blackmail the judiciary to get what they want, or if he does not get the judiciary, he will say the judiciary is compromised, he doesn’t get INEC to do what he wants, he will say INEC has been compromised, if he doesn’t get the commissioner of police to undermine the law for him, he will say the commissioner has been undermined, then such is not ready for democracy.
This has to stop, someone in APC, someone in the federal government has to rise up and tell this gentleman enough is enough.
Having been re-elected at a time that Nigeria including Bayelsa is witnessing a huge drop in the price of oil, are you concerned about the dwindling revenue that would be coming to you concerning your campaign promises.
Secondly, you do know that the arms distributed during elections are not yet retrieved, is the insecurity a course of concern for you.
I have always maintained that after elections, especially after the last presidential election, all governors, irrespective of the way we feel about that election should walk to support the president and the federal government on two critical areas.
One is on issue of national security and law and order, the second one, on economy, because I have always known that this time will be very trying because we have seen a steady decline of our revenue for the past one and half year, it’s possible that APC that was in opposition didn’t see that coming, so I have made this call over and over. What I have seen is insufficient attention by the federal team, the team around the president.
For example, they seem to have taken their eyes off the economy, the core economic issues and they focus more on political conquest and expansion of the sphere for the authority of their party and all the type of intrigues going on even within their party. I am of the view that the president does not have the best of honest advice; I am of the view that the economic team of the president is not expansive and broad enough, I am seeing a lot of unnecessary restrictions, I am seeing an unnecessary concern about political ego.
This president took over the reigns of authority at a time that calls for all hands to be on deck, this is when we should be forming national consensus. Take for example, more people have died at the hands of Boko Haram when the president took over till date than for the relative period in the last administration. What it means is that, contrary to the public proclamations that the Boko Haram will be defeated, the threat still remains a serious one. Our men and women in uniforms are doing their best and we must all give them support.
When you tie that with the possibility of the consequences of this economic downturn we have in this country, this year 2016 and going forward, I don’t see why the team around the president will be depending on political conquest as they do in seploying national assets and resources in areas that are not necessary. What is necessary is for concensus to be formed on the economy. Now with Iran pumping more oil and fully involved in oil trade again, we are going to have more glut in the oil market with the attendant reduction in international price. That is a serious matter, because it will have an impact on even the internal law and order because every hungry man is an angry man. States are not going to be able to pay salaries, including the federal government, so with the way it is, how are you sure you will be able to pay even the salaries of your soldiers, your law enforcement officials, your judicial personnel and all the critical workers you need in place to keep our nation going?
These are the real challenges facing the country. I am surprised quite frankly, very surprised and shocked that in spite of all these challenges, what we see is that people are more interested in battles, interested in fights, instead of making friends and building national concensus. Mind you, it is after elections you address the problems of the country and the problems of the state and move forward. Sadly that’s not what is happening.
I am very concerned on the way the country is going in the issue of security, not just in the Niger Delta, and in the Niger Delta, I don’t think that the approach of being selective in law enforcement, enforcement of order, selective deployment of military and security personnel is the solution. We should just draw a line and say no to criminality and violence and irresponsible criminal conduct.
There are people who killed, people who have been allowed to arm others adding to our security situation right in Bayelsa and in the Niger Delta, and the security agencies know it, even APC knows them and they don’t care. So we are addressing Boko Haram, And you are opening a needless political war under that, you are now allowing violent elements, supporting them, give them all the money, give them security cover and they have compromised state and national security.
As you rightly said, if during election you equip militants, who told you after election they will give you back those arms?
There are different accounts as to how Boko Haram started and one account is very similar to this and I kept shouting and kept raising the alarm. The right thing to be done is for the security agencies to pick up these guys, cause a massive investigation and then show the supremacy of the state because any society where non-state actors have a share and partake in sharing the instrument of violence and coercion, that is a failing and failed state and we should not allow that.
My government stands for peace, law and order, and security. They have compounded our challenges even in spite of the dwindling economy, enforcing the law is also very expensive, but we are going to get that done. All I am asking is cooperation and professionalism on the part of the federal agency because no governor controls the instrument of authority of enforcing the law. Unfortunately, when people talk about state police, they misunderstand it, so you are in your state, they send you commissioner of police one after the other every week to compromise your security and there is nothing you can do. So, I am calling for understanding and for support from the federal government so we can again keep Bayelsa and Niger Delta safe.
On the economy, the good thing about Bayelsa is that we spent the first term laying the foundation, schools completed, some 90%, we need to complete them because investment has already been made. Most of the road infrastructure like the airport is now 70%, so, the hard decision has been taken, the difficult investment has already been made, we just need to monitor and follow through.
What are you doing to bring back the unity of Ijaw nation?
The ijaw nation is united, yes a contest among brothers is bound to generate some divisions even in the family, but there are no sharp divisions at such, he had his own party men and some supporters but majority of our people are unflinching in their support for me, not just in Bayelsa, across the Niger Deltas across the South South. You talked about the unity of the Ijaw nation. The Ijaw nation is united.
Are you disappointed that week’s after election, the president is yet to congratulate you?
Democratic standards differ, I don’t know the briefing that he has and I quite frankly, I don’t know whose interest it is serving. Whoever has made it that the president has not followed the traditions of his predecessors in congratulating a governor, especially a governor going through seriously contested election like this against his party and winning in spite of all odds is not acting rightly. If I were advising this president, I will say you should not waste time in congratulating a governor after electoral victory, because the president remains the leader of the nation.
From Obasanjo followed by the late Yar’Adua, and Jonathan, they all congratulated governors after their victory no matter the party even if their party and their candidates complain or disagree.
What is the condition of the king that was shot?
I will be visiting the king and I am getting periodic reports and updates about him. They are stabilizing him, he has a bullet lodged right in his brain and the guys who shot him are still there parading themselves, controlling their militant agencies, protected by agents of the state because they are not PDP. They support APC and their candidate. So when I read the Tompolo statement that it was APC elements that were sent to blow up the pipeline, people should not take it lightly.
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