AHEAD of the Bayelsa State governorship election later in the year, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief David Lyon, has joined the race again.
Lyon was declared winner of the last election and was preparing to be sworn in until the Supreme Court nullified his election on the eve of the ceremony over discrepancies in the name of his running mate and declared Senator Douye Diri winner.
On Friday, February 17, hundreds of his supporters, led by Marlin Danier, stormed the national secretariat of the party in Abuja to pick the N50million expression of interest and nomination forms on his behalf.
Danier, who was the state secretary of the APC, told journalists that Lyon remained the only person that can win the governorship election for the party in the state and called on the Senator Abdullahi Adamu- led National Working Committee (NWC) to ensure a level-playing ground for all aspirants for the position.
He said: “Lyon is a young man that gallantly fought a very colossus governor and won him. Unfortunately, the arms of the law were twisted against him and he was denied the opportunity of being the governor of Bayelsa State to save that state.
“Today, we are back here to get the form for him to go back and contest this election. Ordinarily, and under normal circumstances, he was supposed to be given the right of first refusal by the party; sales of forms are not supposed to be made open.
“I am taking this message to the national executive and whoever is concerned, that if they want APC to produce the next governor of Bayelsa State, there is no doubt that it is picking Lyon as a candidate of the party
“Lyon has been tested, tried and trusted. As I talk to you, everyday, the PDP-led administration is inviting pastors and Imams from different quarters to go and pray that Lyon will not become the APC candidate. He is their nightmare; they are comfortable with every other person, but with him, they know they are off. That has been their prayer.
“I can confidently and categorically tell the world that if Lyon is given the ticket today to represent the party, more than half of the membership of PDP will come back to the APC. If anybody thinks I’m lying, let them go and ask PDP members in Bayelsa, not even APC members, the PDP members will tell them that if Lyon comes back as the candidate of APC, all of them will come and work for him. That is the true position of things in Bayelsa today.
“I want to plead with the national secretary; we need a level-playing ground, so that we will overcome the temptation of going to court. We want to win elections, and Lyon is the only candidate that can win the elections for us.”
A former member of the House of Representatives, Dr. Stella Dorgu, assured that Lyon would reclaim his mandate this time around, adding: “This will be the second time in four years that we made this trip to pick up the form. But most unfortunately, victory was snatched from us just at the nick of time. And part of the reason was that Lyon, being true to his name Lion, dared to dare the lion in its den.
“We are here to assure Bayelsans that we are ready this time. We’ve got our work cut out for us. We have put plans in place end everybody knows that Lyon is the best governor that Bayelsans can muster to do the job.
“We will go from door-to-door, woman-to-woman, man-to-man, plain-to-plain, as we used to say back home. And we know that victory is ours, because it is a foregone conclusion that Lyon is the next governor of Bayelsa. He is the one we know that will bring the trajectory of development to where Bayelsans want it to be.”
