Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The immediate past Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has stepped up moves to win the governorship ticket of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State.
The newly Director-General of Lokpobiri campaign organisation (LCO), Hon Warman Ogoriba, said APC will a organise hitch-free governorship primaries to demonstrate that APC is ready to take over the state.
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Ogoriba, a two-time former member of the House of Representatives, explained in an interview in Yenagoa that as the director-General of LCO, he was capable of coordinating the process of making Lokpobiri the candidate of APC in the forthcoming election.
He said after his emergence as APC candidate, the party would work as a team to win the November governorship election, insisting that Lokpobiri was the best option to deliver development to Bayelsa.
Warman said those criticising the aspiration of Lokpobiri because he hails from Ekeremor in the same Bayelsa West Senatorial District as incumbent governor Henry Seriake Dickson are misinformed.
He argued that there was no time Bayelsa stakeholders sat down to adopt a particular rotational method for the office of governor.
The campaign head said all senatorial districts in the state had already received their fair share of occupying the position of governor, adding that it could be the turn of any local government area that had yet to occupy the office regardless of senatorial district.
“Many people talk about zoning and I laugh most times because I have been around the political scene for a while, precisely from 1999 till today, and I can tell you with all amount of seriousness that there is no day that Bayelsa politicians sat somewhere and agreed that we were going to zone,” Ogoriba said.
“Late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeiseigha won in 1999 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). So, the governorship started from the Central. Alamieyeiseigha left and Dr Goodluck Jonathan came in from the East and he handed over to another man from the East, Chief Timipre Sylva.
“Timipre Sylvia was removed and then Dickson came from the West. If you look at it, all the three senatorial districts have taken their turn. It is not written anywhere that once they take their turn it must come back to Central or East again.”