Governor Douye Diri has emerged as the flagbearer for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the state governorship election scheduled for November 11, 2023.
OsunDaily News reports that the incumbent governor won the party ticket unopposed on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
Diri was cleared by the Philip Shuaibu-led PDP screening committee for the Bayelsa exercise in March. The ad-hoc delegates were drawn from the eight local government areas of the state.
The PDP’s head of panel for the elective state delegates congress for the Bayelsa governorship primaries and governor of Osun state, Ademola Adeleke, affirmed Diri as the party’s flagbearer after following due process of holding the election at the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre, Yenagoa.
According to Governor Adeleke, Diri polled 305 votes to emerge as the party’s sole candidate.
He said, “Having satisfied the requirements of this election and having scored the highest number of votes, I, Senator Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke, by the power vested in me as the chairman, Chief Returning Officer, hereby declare Senator Douye Diri as the winner of the election.
“I, therefore, return him as the candidate of the PDP in the November 2023 election.”
In his acceptance speech, Governor Diri described the exercise as “the best primaries in the history of our party in Bayelsa state.”
According to him, the primaries were a mere formality to fulfil the requirements of the Electoral Act, adding that his party was growing more potent daily. Diri attributed his emergence as the only aspirant for the primaries to the understanding within the party.
He said, “Some would have questioned that our governor is the only candidate, we don’t need this process, our governor can just continue and then we face whoever that will come from any opposition party here in the state.
“But the electoral laws do not permit us that way. It is therefore with this utmost joy and a very grateful heart to all of us in the Peoples Democratic Party, the leaders, the followers and all the allies, I do accept your nomination as the candidate of our great party to contest in the November 11 governorship election in the state.”
