Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, has categorically stated that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Timipre Silva, will not win the November 11 governorship election because the latter’s candidacy has not been validated by the court.
Governor said this while in Agbere Community, the headquarters of Sagbama Constituency III, during the grand finale of the constituency campaigns in the area on Monday.
According to Diri, Silva, a former governor and the immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, still has a case pending in the court.
He said, “Let me remind you that in this election that we are going on November 11, now Timipre Sylva is not a candidate, who said it? It is the court. Up till now they are filing and filing appeals and the date is getting closer. They will file and file out of time.
“So any vote for the APC is an invalid vote. Even campaigns they are becoming jealous, what they are doing now is that they are calling people to come and disorganize our campaigns, but you see when God has blessed a man, you cannot curse.
“So let me advise my man, who says that the chapter of governorship of Bayelsa State and him is closed and now he has reopened it.
“When you have reopened it, play it according to the rules and anybody who does not play it by the rule is an animal and that is the kind of society that Thomas Hobbes described as the state of nature where might is right, where life has become brutish, nasty and short. And our society, Bayelsa State is a lawful society, it is not a lawless society. So if you don’t keep by your words others keep by their words, others keep to laws.
“So please stop scamming people to disorganize our organic campaigns and rallies. We don’t buy these people, they are here because they love their state. So I advise, let us play by the rules.”
It could be recalled that the Federal High Court in Abuja on October 9 disqualified Silva from contesting the November 11 election in Bayelsa State .
Delivering judgment, Judge Donatus Okorowo, held that Sylva, having been sworn in twice and ruled for five years as governor of the state, would breach the 1999 constitution if allowed to contest again.
The judge held that Sylva was not qualified to run in the forthcoming poll because if he wins and is sworn in, he would spend more than eight years in office as governor of the state.
It could be recalled that Silva was first elected as governor of Bayelsa in 2007 but a year after in April 15, 2008 he was asked to vacate the seat following the Appeal Court’s judgement in April 15, 2008.
Meanwhile, a new election was held on May 24, 2008, and Sylva, again running as the PDP candidate, was massively voted in with 588,204 out of about 598,000 votes.
But in January 2012, his tenure was terminated by the Supreme Court with an acting governor appointed to govern the state until the election of February 2012 which ushered in Seriake Dickson.
