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Gov Sylva to Thisday:You have joined the vandals
Newsdiaryonline March 23,2011
Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva, has dismissed the
opinion poll result published by THISDAY/IPSOS, which predicted
a possible loss of the state in the gubernatorial elections to
an opposition party, as “a joke taken too far.”
According to a statement in Yenagoa by the Chief Press Secretary
to the Governor, Mr. Doifie Ola, Sylva said it was illogical for
the poll organisers to have arrived at a verdict predicting the
defeat of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state given the
obvious conditions to the contrary.
“Bayelsa is the home state of the president, Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan, and it is not likely that the president and his party
would lose the governorship election in the state to an
opposition party, when there is no disconnect between him and
his roots. Jonathan was the governor of the state, who handed
over to the incumbent governor to answer a call to higher
responsibility. Both men belong to the same party, PDP, and they
are at peace with themselves and the people, as was evident in
the result of the 13 January 2011 PDP presidential primary in
Abuja.
“Besides, 99 per cent of
all elected officials of government at the state and federal
levels are members of PDP. Every observer of politics in the
state knows that PDP is the only active party here. The rest are
mainly renegade parties that exist on the airwaves and on the
pages of newspapers.
“The decision of THISDAY/IPSOS to award a state like Bayelsa to
a party that is just a few month’s old in the state, and that
has virtually no structures at all levels of government here,
therefore, beats every political imagination. It insults
political sensibilities not only in Bayelsa, but also among all
watchers of politics in Nigeria.”
The governor submitted that the poll organised by THISDAY/IPSOS,
and published in the THISADY edition of Monday, 20 March, 2011,
was meant to embarrass the president because there was nothing
on the ground indicating any serious opposition to PDP in
Bayelsa State.
“This governorship candidate to whom the state was awarded
suffers a complete lack of touch with the people. Compared to
Governor Sylva who commands
a solid political base, and has been widely endorsed by
all active political forces in the state – President Jonathan,
leaders of thought, labour, students, traditional rulers,
ex-militants, youths, women, elders and founding fathers of the
state, etc; this other candidate
has no political base whatsoever”, the statement
declared.
It stressed further that “Governor Sylva has performed
creditably well on practically all imaginable spheres - health,
education, infrastructure, power, agriculture, accountability,
name it - in this first tenure and the Bayelsa people will sure
return him for a second term. So we wonder where THISDAY/IPSOS
conducted the poll that gave the result they published”.
Bayelsa State is one of the states where a Federal High
Court in Abuja recently ruled that governorship elections should
not hold this year because the governors were yet to complete
their tenure. But the statement said even if that order were
overturned, Sylva would still win the poll.
“We consider it very disgraceful that THISDAY would lend itself
to this falsehood and grievous attack on the political
sensibilities of Nigerians. At a time like this, when virtually
every valuable institution of our democracy is under assault by
various selfish interests, we would have expected THISDAY to
remain a dependable ally of the people and society’s bulwark
against the desecrations of self-seeking men. But we are afraid,
THISDAY has joined the vandals. This is unfortunate,” the
statement concluded.
....It’s a hatchet job for PDP-CPC's
Rotimi Fashakin.
The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) wishes to appeal to
its teeming members and supporters in all parts of Nigeria
and beyond to discountenance the
sponsored publication which appeared on the front page
of Monday, March 21, 2011 edition of ThisDay Newspapers
captioned “Jonathan Leads with 60%, PDP May Lose
Four States” A cursory
look at the said publication shows that it is in line with the
hatchet job which the
publishers of the newspapers (ThisDay), had been doing for the
Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) in every election year, since the return to
democratic rule in 1999.
Our research shows that these fake “opinion polls” by the
publishers of ThisDay Newspapers
form a major tactic employed by the PDP, INEC, the Police and
the SSS and other
security agencies to rig elections in the country. This has
happened in 1999, 2003
and 2007. In some cases in the past, PDP had tendered such fake
“opinion polls”
publications in courts as evidence to back up its fraudulent
electoral victories and
stolen mandates of the Nigerian masses.
As the 2011 general elections draws nearer, the PDP through its
presidential candidate,
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has resorted to playing the trick of
hiring the publishers of
ThisDay Newspapers to manufacture the usual document for
election rigging. The
current publications which awarded 62% of the votes to be cast
by long suffering
Nigerians to Jonathan and PDP who are their
“Tormentors-in-Chief”, looks
like a last ditch effort by the PDP and its candidate to justify
the massive electoral
fraud they have planned to unleash on Nigerians.
But as a responsible political party that is poised to rescue
hapless Nigerians from
the vice-grip of the PDP in the last twelve years, we wish to
warn publishers of
ThisDay Newspapers and their paymasters, to allow peace to reign
in Nigeria, by desisting
from having a hand in whatever will truncate the
electoral will of the
Nigerian people this year. We stand by the firm insistence
of Nigerians as well as
the International Community that VOTES MUST COUNT in
Nigeria this time
around.
No amount of panic measures including the publications of
officially sponsored fraudulent
“opinion polls” will intimidate Nigerians to abandon their
resolve this time around
to insist that the right thing be done in the country during
these crucial general
elections.On our part, we shall continue to bring to the fore
the shenanigans of the ruling
PDP, in its desperate bid to hoodwink our unsuspecting people.
Eternal vigilance remains the price for our freedom! Long live
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Rotimi Fashakin. (Engr.)is the National Publicity Secretary.
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