TheCable

Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been re-elected governor of the state.

Declaring Dickson winner of the election ob behalf of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Zana Akpagu, the collation/returning officer, said the incumbent governor polled 134,998 votes, while his closest challenger, Timipre Sylva of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 86,852 votes.

Immediately after the announcement, Dennis Otitio, agent of APC dissented, saying total votes cancelled were more than 53,000 while the difference between Dickson and Sylva was over 48,000 votes.

He argued that by law, there was no reason to declare a winner under the prevailing circumstance.

“What the returning officer should have done was to order for a rerun in the areas that were cancelled. By law, they were not supposed to declare a winner, but they had gone ahead with that, in flagrant disregard for the electoral law,” he said.

“The thing was a sham. It was deigned from the beginning to rig APC out; it was designed from the beginning to make PDP win.”

However, Fred Agbebi, the PDP agent congratulated Dickson for winning and INEC for “doing their best”.

Asked to comment on the protestations of the APC agent, he said: “That is very normal. They have lost an election; anybody who loses an election will certainly not be happy.

“But the next thing to do is for everyone to join hands with my governor, Right Honourable Seriake Dickson, a good man, to move the state forward.”