One of the governorship aspirants under the platform of the All Progressives Congress, Bayelsa State, Chief Diekivie Ikiogha, has lamented the invasion of the primary election of the party by thugs and cult groups.
Youths said to be loyal to former Governor Timipre Sylva were said to have invaded the Samson Siasia Sports Complex venue of the primary when news filtered into the area that the electoral commission headed by Governor Adams Oshiomhole was planning to postpone the election.
The youths, who were rowdy, threw tantrums at Oshiomhole and other members of the election committee for skewing the election against Sylva.
The arena was thrown into chaos leading to delegates, aspirants and the crowd scampering for safety.
Ikiogha, who was former Chief of Staff, Bayelsa Government House, said he escaped from the venue of the election by a whisker.
He said in an interview on Wednesday that thugs and cult groups invaded the venue and insisted that the exercise must be conducted in a particular way to favour their paymaster.
He said they were disappointed at the turn of event but expressed satisfaction over the conduct of Oshiomhole and his committee members for not allowing themselves to be stampeded into engaging in irregularities.
He said the chairman stood his ground and said party guidelines and constitution must be followed to the letter in the conduct of the election.
He said, “At the end of the day, the chairman of the electoral committee came in and the election was aborted .
However we heard that some people still went ahead to do something even in the absence of the chairman and the national observers.
“But that is not an issue to worry about but what concern us is that election we taught would be very peaceful in Bayelsa state turned out to be a very different thing entirely.
“We all taught that APC has been a very good party and that we left a party that was full of intimidation or what I can describe as denying people a right to contest in an election. The Peoples Democratic Party we left lacked internal democracy and we came to the APC for succour.
“We are hoping that the national body will look into it and adopt other means of conducting a fair and just primary in the near future so that it will not affect the fortunes of our great party.”
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