Bayelsa 2023: Ex-Commissioner Urges Sylva, Others To Step Down For Lyon …As APC Holds Primary Election

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State, Hon. Ndutimi Komonibo on Monday said only the party’s candidate in the 2019 governorship election, Chief David Lyon can ensure victory for the party in the November 11 governorship election.

“David Lyon won in 2019 clean and clear because of his philanthropic nature and accessibility and till today Bayelsans still love him.

“We feel he should be given the right of first refusal for the benefit of Bayelsa State, for the benefit of APC and its members.

“That’s why we are saying that he should be given the right of first refusal,” Komonibo said during a live programme on 99.9 Kiss FM, an Abuja-based radio station.

Komonibo, a former Commissioner for Science and Technology in the state, appealed to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva to forgo his ambition of contesting the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

He maintained that if Sylva contests the APC guber primaries, Lyon will defeat him.

According to him, “Timipre Sylva has already told the world that he’s not contesting again, he said it on the radio last year.

“He said that that chapter of his life is closed and that he’s not contesting anymore for governorship, he has made it public.

“Be that as it may, Chief David Lyon will still defeat Chief Timipre Sylva no doubt about it because we are talking about popularity.

“BVAS has come to stay and this tells you it is one man, one vote. I am also very sure that it’s direct primaries that we are going to do which have to do with every card-carrying member. And that is the mindset of every member of APC in Bayelsa State. We want to win, we have suffered.

“We won an election but the supreme court overturned the decision of Bayelsans and we have suffered as APC members in Bayelsa State, we are not ready to suffer.”

The APC chieftain also chided Sylva for allegedly not resigning his appointment as a minister before contesting for the party’s ticket, arguing that he had flouted that section of the electoral act.

“The electoral act is very clear, section 84 sub-section 12 says as a political appointee you cannot contest or be voted for in an election.

“So picking the form he claims people bought for him and to have subjected himself to screening means he intentionally bought the form.

“So as far as I’m concerned it’s either he wants to bring in confusion or he doesn’t want APC to win the governorship election in November,” he said.

Komonibo called on President Muhammadu Buhari, the President-Elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the national leadership of the APC to give Lyon the right of first refusal or make him the consensus candidate.

He equally urged other gubernatorial aspirants of the party to step down for the former Bayelsa governor-elect.

“I think God gave him (Lyon) uncommon courage, because as someone said if it was him he would have been dead by now.

“We all passed through the trauma, you know what it means for someone to spend so much money and just in the nick of time someone, somewhere, denied you the mandate,” Komonibo lamented.

While insisting that Lyon is more popular than other party aspirants, Komonibo said “Chief David Lyon will earn the vote of the people and he’s the only man that can win an election for APC in Bayelsa State.”

“Bayelsans are yearning for Lyon to come back. During the presidential campaign, when President-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu visited Bayelsa state there was an ovation. Some people were called to address the people but there was no ovation.

“Not quite long we went to visit a school, come and see the ovation, people were lining up to see a person who didn’t sit as governor.

“People are yearning for Lyon to come back, that is to tell you how popular he is, so his popularity is not in doubt.”

– Dauseighe Bowei