Godknows Powell, who scored 39 votes in a peaceful
primary conducted at the state secretariat of the party in Yenagoa on Wednesday.
The primary was conducted by a seven-member
electoral committee led by Brig. Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali
(retd.).
With this victory, Sylva will face incumbent Governor
Seriake Dickson, who defeated him in the 2011
governorship election.
A two-time former member of the House of Representatives, Warman
Ogoriba scored 28 votes.
Another aspirant, Diekivie Ikiogha, scored 22 votes
while Ebite Williams got nine votes and Charity Valdego scored seven
votes. Messrs Preye Aganaba
and Febo Austin scored eight and seven votes respectively, among others.
Out of 1,147 total votes cast at the poll, the chairman
of the panel declared 1,120 votes valid and declared
27 votes invalid.
The rescheduled primary was peaceful and largely
devoid of rancour and violence which characterised
the initial exercise that was held on September 22 at
the Samson Siasia Sports Complex.
Delegates conducted themselves in an orderly
manner from 11pm on Tuesday till Wednesday
afternoon when they cast their votes after
accreditation.
There was, however, a brief protest at the venue of
the election when Ikiogha led some aggrieved aspirants to the area,
accusing the panel of shutting
them out of the exercise.
For about an hour, Ikiogha and some other aggrieved
aspirants kept the panel chairman busy with their
complaints.
Ikiogha said the panel came to the state without
meeting with them to intimate them on the modalities for the election,
alleging that the committee came with a mandate to stop them from
partaking in the exercise.
He said, "This election is worse than the previous
exercise that was cancelled. We are aware that a new
list of delegates was compiled the previous night for
the purpose of the election.
This is not the change we advocated for. We are
appealing for the cancellation of the election."
But the committee chairman insisted that the process
was transparent and appealed to the aggrieved
aspirants to maintain the peace.
After lodging their complaints, the angry aspirants
walked out of the venue of the exercise and refused
to come back till the end of the election Sylva, who was declared
winner of the primary around 4pm by Dan-Alli, thanked the delegates
for electing him for second time.
He also commended the electoral committee
members for a job well, saying that politicians still
had had a lot to learn from the military.
Apparently alluding to Edo State Governor, Adams
Oshiomhole, Sylva lampooned the governor for
alleged inability to conduct the primary.
He said, "I am very happy today to accept this victory
that you have given to me for the second time. I will
like to tell all of you today that this is only the beginning of the
journey. Today, I have seen that we
politicians have a lot to learn from the military.
"What a great and serving governor of a great state of
this country was incapable of doing just a few days
ago has been achieved by a retired general and his
team. This tells me that we have a lot to learn from
the military."
Meanwhile, one of the topmost contenders for the
APC governorship race, Chief Ndutimi Alaibe,
withdrew from the contest.
Source: Pounch
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