Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, on Friday, put the average statistics of voters that took part in the December 5, 2015, governorship election at 40 per cent, contrary to the claim of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva.
He made the clarification while featuring on a live interview programme, ‘Focus Nigeria’ aired on Africa Independent Television (AIT), saying the statistics is not peculiar to Bayelsa State.
Dickson said having won six out of seven LGs declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with a wide margin, he should be declared the winner of the election and not the APC candidate.
Giving a breakdown of the statistical voting pattern in the last election, Dickson said Sagbama council had a total number of 83,000 registered voters and the number of PVCs collected was 73,000, while 35,000 voters were accredited, same for Ogbia and Ekeremor councils.
According to him, the number of registered voters in Brass local government stood at 55,000 while the votes cast was 29, 000 which is about the highest.
While commending INEC for the introduction of the PVCs, Dickson stated that in Ofoni community, which is PDP’s stronghold, with a voting strength of 14,000, only about 3,000 voted, out of which he scored about 2,500.
“Southern Ijaw has 120, 827 registered voters with 17 wards. Yenagoa is the largest with over 135,000 voting population less than 45,000 turned up for the election”, he emphasised.
The governor pointed out that, with pockets of violence recorded on December 5 and 6, 2015, the turn out may be low for the re-run, adding that he would record a convincing victory in the area going by the level of consultations with relevant stakeholders from the local government.
He said, “I have been engaging with various stakeholders, chiefs, women and youth groups from the area and over 5,000 members of the APC recently decamped to the PDP. With this development and assurance that this time around, there will be no reign of terror and materials will get to their communities.
“I am hoping that the percentage of the voters’ turn out will be higher than the 40% that we have already seen as the average.”
X-raying the political situation in Bayelsa State, Dickson attributed the violence and fraud that marred the election in some areas, especially in Southern Ijaw, to lack of respect for various institutions of government.
He, therefore, called for collaborative efforts from well meaning Nigerians towards proffering solutions that would strengthen the critical institutions of the country, to enable them function effectively.
