All Progressives Congress, APC, stakeholders in Bayelsa State have accused the national leadership of the party of abandoning Timipre Sylva during the November 11 governorship election in the state.
Sylva was the candidate of the APC in the governorship election.
The Bayelsa APC stakeholders made the allegation in a petition addressed to the party’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje.
The petition, jointly signed by Dr Otiti Etionumeya and 37 others, further alleged that Bayelsa was used as a sacrificial lamb to satisfy some vested interests.
Etionumeya, addressing journalists on Friday in Abuja, said the stakeholders found it strange that Sylva was abandoned at a time he needed support.
He said, “We state unequivocally our utter shock, disgust, and disappointment at the audacious compromise and subversion of the will of the people of Bayelsa State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in its bold-faced cancellation of a whooping 84,806 votes scored by our great party, the APC in the above-mentioned election.
“We find it strange and curious that our party’s candidate was left in the lurch by the party at the national level at a time he needed the support of the party the most, and are therefore inclined to believe that the Bayelsa State chapter of the APC has once again been used as a sacrificial lamb to satisfy some vested interests without any consideration for the party’s teeming members and supporters who have worked assiduously and at great cost for our party’s victory.
“If the Bayelsa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) wasn’t sacrificed to please some vested interests, how do we explain the audacious cancellation of results in areas such as Ogbia, Nembe, Brass, and Southern Ijaw L.G.
“As where our great party had a clear lead until the unfathomable happened, with the INEC jettisoning the respective collation centres where the results ought to have been declared and moved the collation of results to the state collation centre in Yenagoa, the state capital, where results already declared at polling units with our party in clear lead were cancelled in flagrant contravention of Section 51 of the Electoral Act, 2022.”
