A fresh wave of agitation loomed yesterday with the former leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, giving the Federal Government a week ultimatum to hands off in an alleged plan to rig the governorship election in Bayelsa State and install the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Timipre Sylva, as winner of the election.
In a statement made available to the Press in Yenagoa, the state capital,Dokubo-Asari accused the Federal Government and its agencies of collaborating with the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC) to rig the election,warning that except government stays clear of the alleged complicity, the ex-militants would return to the creeks to resume agitation with consequences on strategic oil installations.
If by next week the Federal Government does not hands off from the Bayelsa polls by allowing the people to freely choose their leader but still interfering throught he observed various guises and deception, then we would have no option than to return to the creeks to press for our rights as patriotic citizens being unduly oppressed and dehumanized all in the name of politics”, he stated.
He stated: “We have said it before that President Buhari is executing an anti-Ijaw agenda and his aim is to steal our God-given resources to rebuild the north destroyed by Boko Haram. That is why he is hell-bent on manipulating the electoral process in Bayelsa State and hand it over to the APC.
They are exploiting Sylva’s greed and desperation for power and therefore using him to carry out their evil agenda. But we want them to know that this country will go up in flames if they try it. Boko Haram will be a child’s play if President Buhari and his APC think they can upturn the people’s mandate. It would be a grave injustice which can never stand. We are Ijaw people and we have never been conquered”.
He noted that going by the results already declared by INEC, PDP’s candidate, Seriake Dickson, had won 6 of the 7 local governments declared with a margin of 33,154votes and has thus fulfilled constitutional requirement of 2/3 spread and popular votes but without Southern Ijaw as the only local government remaining.
He has therefore called on the Federal Government to ensure the election is rescheduled and conducted in a transparent process as they will be watching to see if the government still interferes in the process till next week and would then launch “a full scale agitation to save our people from modern day slavery of intimidation, oppression and dictators.
